Chapter Thirty-Five
A Cold Wind
Outside Bruneck, South Tyrol
Kingdom of Italy
December 1924
It had snowed the night before, leaving the snow thick on the ground, at least a meter high in many places. The roads leading in and out of Bruneck had been plowed over by modified civilian tractors earlier that morning. Workers, some conscripted whilst others volunteered, had slaved away by shoveling snow and chipping ice up and down the main arterial roads crisscrossing throughout much of South Tyrol. Goods and people were once again able to move, albeit slowly, until the next snowstorm where the whole process would have to begin again.
The sun was shrouded by dark gray clouds that were gently moved by a cold, bitter wind. The road before them curved between snow-capped hills. Below were four vehicles, moving slowly but steadily, careful of any patches of black ice. Three were armored military cars while the fourth vehicle was a large Army truck carrying either crates of supplies or heavily armed soldiers, placed at the rear.
Jakob Kuhr eyed the approaching convoy, noting the machine gun on the lead car. A smile split his face as the machine gun wasn’t manned. It seemed to him that the Italians did not wish to expose themselves to a South Tyrolese winter.
Good, that would make things easier.
Kuhr looked to his left and right, seeing loyal Austria-loving South Tyrolese readying themselves. They wore white coats, some originally darker colors like brown, black and gray that had been painted over to blend into the snow. His men were a mix of Wolves and recently joined volunteers who had grown tired of Italian tyranny. There were two score in total, half on the hill Kuhr resided upon while the other half lay in waiting on the hill opposite. The weapons they carried were the ones Kuhr and the Wolves had brought from Carinthia, unearthed and ready to kill.
Kuhr thought back to the past weeks, the Italian oppression under Luigi Cadorna had only increased in devastating leaps and bounds. There had been frequent public executions of suspected ‘terrorists’ in Bruneck alone, with province-wide arrests numbering in the hundreds and increasing higher ‘occupation taxes’ that left many wondering if they would be able to afford rising gas and coal prices to survive winter.
The field marshal’s brutality had the opposite effect of what he likely envisioned. Instead of crushing the South Tyrolese rebel movement, it merely added fuel to the fire. Acts of defiance, from puncturing tires on Italian Army vehicles, to boycotting Italian goods and businesses and killing the occasional Italian soldier had led to South Tyrol becoming an economic blackhole for the Kingdom of Italy. Kuhr had heard rumors from barmaids and evening companions loyal to their true Fatherland stating that many Italian soldiers had stated they would have preferred garrison duty in Eritrea or Somaliland rather than be stationed in South Tyrol as those locations were deemed safer. That was not all. It seemed many Italian soldiers, most fresh-faced conscripts, considered South Tyrol in the same category of danger as Libya, greatly amusing Kuhr and his Kampfgruppe associates in Vienna who had continued to discreetly send money and other supplies needed to keep the rebellion afloat.
Things had devolved so much that it had forced Benito Mussolini’s hand. The dictator had recalled the bloodthirsty Cardona, replacing him with the more tame and calculating Emilio De Bono who had already ordered the executions to stop and slowed the arrests, following a ‘wait-and-see’ policy, as well as enforcing patrols on the Austro-Italian border. Outright rebellion had simmered down but steadfastly remained just beneath the surface. Kuhr would ensure it would never dissipate fully.
Now Cardona, removed from his disastrous governorship of South Tyrol, was being moved to Rome to be part of the General Staff. Labeled in newspapers as a promotion, anyone who could read between the lines knew it was a demotion. And now the bastard field marshal was approaching, unaware he was to face Austrian justice.
Kuhr checked his rifle, a Carcano M91 ‘borrowed’ from a dead occupier he and his cohorts had killed weeks ago. Satisfied it was in good order, he looked down the hill to the road. There was a small boulder near the road, unremarkable in every way yet it was important. It was the marker.
As the lead Italian car moved past the boulder, unafraid, it exploded. The mine it had run over had turned the armored car into a fireball of broken metal and cooking flesh. The vehicles behind the now destroyed car swerved to the sides, hitting the brakes, fearful of more mines.
Kuhr raised his rifle, aiming at the driver of the second car. He fired one, then a second time, the glass shattering and the driver falling forward onto the wheel, causing the car horn to ring out. The other Austrian patriots raised their guns, an ad-hoc collection of bolt-action rifles, both of Army and civilian origin, pistols and even a shotgun. They unloaded their hateful barrage against the confused and disorganized Italians, killing a dozen in less than a minute. Soldiers spilled out from the large truck only to be cut down by pinpoint gunfire. Many of his men had fought in the Great War and took savage glee in delivering retribution to the weakling Mediterranean race.
“Go!” Kuhr yelled, running down the hill. Half followed him, the other half staying back to provide cover fire.
An Italian soldier popped up from behind the boulder, having ran there from one of the cars when the ambush began, but one of the Austrian sharpshooters downed him with a well-placed shot in his chest. He fell back, sputtering blood, staring wide-eyed up into the sky, moaning in pain.
Kuhr and several other Austrians moved towards the second car, a command vehicle, so denoted by the small pennants on the hood. Another soldier of the Regio Esercito rose up from behind the car but Kuhr and two other Austrians peppered him with rifle fire. The man’s body fell backwards into the roadside ditch, blood steaming in the wintry air and blood staining the snow crimson.
Reaching the vehicle, Kuhr pulled the rear-side passenger door open, revealing a bloodied and dazed Field Marshal Luigi Cardona.
Cardona looked at him, afraid. Kuhr raised the rifle, chambering a new round, the spent shell falling to the road.
“Per favore, non uccidermi-” Cardona began.
Kuhr pulled the trigger, bursting Cardona’ head open like spoiled fruit.
Several men behind him cheered in victory but stopped after Kuhr raised his hand.
Turning, he spoke to them. “Scavenge for weapons and ammo. Destroy the vehicles. Kill any survivors.”
While his men followed orders, Kuhr looked back at Cardona. The field marshal’s blood and brain matter were dripping down the seat. Sneering, Kuhr spat on the corpse.
“Good riddance,” he muttered before turning away to join in the retrieval of weapons.
Berlin, Germany
German Reich
December 1924
The bedroom smelled of sex, sweat, alcohol and cigarettes. Paul Lutjens and his lover’s limbs were entangled, the bed sheets thrown haphazardly to the floor. Their body heat kept each other warm through what proved to be another cold year. By the time it would end, there would doubtless be corpses found in their homes, having frozen to death due to lack of heat.
Ursula sat up, her hair dampened by sweat, the blonde curls reaching her exposed breasts that shifted as she moved. She grabbed the bottle of schnapps from the nightstand they had been nursing for the past hour and took a long swig of it straight from the bottle.
“Well don’t be greedy,” Paul said lightheartedly, hand outstretched. She gave him a piercing glare before it softened. She had been giving him a lot of those as of late but after taking another long drink she then handed him the bottle. Frowning, he spoke gently but firmly. “It’s not your fault, you should take it easy for the next few days.”
“I know damn well it isn’t my fault, but we lost twelve seats, Paul. Twelve! Our bloc in the Reichstag has shrunk by nearly a fifth!”
Paul kept his composure. God knows someone had to. Ursula sighed heavily before grabbing another cigarette and lighting it with a match. She took a deep drag, the smoke billowing into the air.
Paul gestured towards the pack. “May I?”
“Of course.” She picked up the cigarette pack and held it open for him to grab one.
“Thank you,” he said, lighting it and taking that first drag, exhaling slowly in relief..
She gave a faint smile.
“Sex and cigarettes. We must appreciate the small comforts,” Ursula said. “There are so few these days.”
Paul said nothing, his mind racing in thought as he smoked. Ursula had been in a foul mood the past week since the Reichstag December election. The Communist Party of Germany had lost a dozen parliamentary seats, largely benefiting the Social Democrats and Center Party. Worse still, was that the Free German Workers’ Defence League had firmly established itself in the Reichstag, rising from the three seats it held since May to eleven. A small gain, true, but the party didn’t even exist a year ago and was a motley collection of over two-dozen small political parties, all amalgamated under the leadership of Gregor Strasser.
Yet despite what should have been nearly impossible to manage, Strasser had whipped the various factions into a unified political party, with the Brownshirts being his muscle and enforcing his word as law amongst the party as well as combating the KPD paramilitary in the streets. Dozens had died in the past year, with hundreds more wheeled into hospitals with concussions, stab wounds and gunshots riddling their bodies.
The KPD despised and even feared the FDAS somewhat. With Communist appeal waning and the fascists rising across the country, it worried many in Berlin who leaned far-left. The KPD Central Committee was so shaken by the parliamentary losses it had suffered, and the surging rise of far-right movements, that a leadership reshuffle had taken place, ostensibly with the permission of Soviet Premier Yakov Sverdlov.
Ruth Fischer and Arkadi Maslow were removed from the party’s upper echelons, recalled to the USSR for ‘political reeducation.’ They were replaced by the committed Marxist-Leninist-Sverdlovist Ernst Thälmann. Ursula had mentioned the night before when she had been quite drunk, that Thälmann was nothing more than a bootlicker to the Soviet dictator and would be little more than a sock puppet under Moscow’s control. For the German Communists that had wished their party to follow a path parallel yet independent to the Soviets were quickly being reminded of their subservient role to Sverdlov and his henchmen.
And not only had the party’s central leadership been changed, so too was the leadership of the Berlin chapter. Paul Joseph Goebbels was to be the head of the Berlin Communists and Chief of Propaganda for the entire KPD. Ursula had complained that the man was both rat-like in appearance and character. No one liked him and he liked no one, but he had proved to be damn effective in his duties. While support for the KPD had wavered, it had only strengthened in Berlin with thousands more active dues-paying members.
Paul had heard all this and more from Ursula, who had tried her best to drink herself into forgetfulness but only making her fall further into despair and lament at what was befalling her beloved Germany and Communist Party. Though he was an Austrian by birth, and proud of that fact, he was coming to love Germany. It was quickly becoming a Second Fatherland to him. Though he did not align with his lover’s politics, he could see past that. It made him uneasy to see her in such a state.
Yet he had no words to comfort her, no words to ease her pain. Lying there, as she began to cry at the misery she found herself in, Paul could do little but be a shoulder for her to lean on. It was a hollow comfort.
Vienna, Austria
Republic of Austria
December 1924
The train pulled into Wiener Stadtbahn, lurching to rest as its brakes squealed, stalling the carriages. The whistle blew, loud and piercing. Many of the passengers rose from their seats, collecting their stored luggage to leave. It did not take long for only two to remain seated, having deigned to wait for the crowds to disperse.
Adolf Hitler looked up from the newspaper he had picked up in Graz. The headline read ‘Peace Declared: New Empire, Same Emperor!’ detailing the conclusion of the Second Zhili–Fengtian War. The conflict between the Beiyang Government and the Japanese-backed Manchurians only recently ended as of earlier this month. The war had been in its infancy when he had left Japan, yet much had come to pass in the near two months it had taken him to cross the world from Asia to Europe.
Better armed, more prepared, and with decisive leadership the Manchurians under Marshal Zuolin had proved victorious and now controlled most of northern China from the Manchu-Soviet border to the Yellow River. With Japanese arms, money and manpower, the Manchruians had solidified a firm hold on their recent gains. Despite such a short victorious war, the newspaper did note that there was great unrest and dissatisfaction in Manchurian-occupied territory.
Yet it seemed Marshal Zuolin had taken this into account, announcing to the world that he was combining the territories of Manchuria and their newly conquered lands into a single state: the Empire of Manchuria. To cement support from uneasy populace and to front up a facade of legitimacy, Zuolin had named himself the Empire’s head of government, titled Grand Marshal of the Empire. But the head of state was to be the once-emperor of the Qing Dynasty: Puyi.
Titularly the sovereign, Hitler knew Puyi would be nothing more than Zuolin’s mouthpiece to appease the pro-imperialist masses. The new emperor’s policies would be in fact the Marshal’s. Puyi would be only a symbol rather than an active and reigning monarch. Hitler gave a momentary chuckle, which drew the eye of Lieselotte.
She sat across from him, reading over the notes that he had written on the long journey home. It was a motley collection of ideas, political thoughts, potential policies, and more. He knew his time in the Nationalliberale Front was short. It was better to be prepared for what came after. He had filled out two entire notebooks and Lieselotte had gone through it all, correcting spelling mistakes, making notations, adding thoughts to appeal to the female electorate.
Once he had become settled, Hitler intended to codify those thoughts and concepts into a political manifesto. But first came the price he would pay for his actions.
Rising, Hitler grabbed his briefcase and suitcase. Lieselotte mirrored him. Their things gathered, they disembarked off the train. The conductor was calling for the next batch of passengers to board.
The train platform quickly emptied as people boarded the train or continued away from platform, hugging and shaking hands with the people who waited on them.
A man waited for them, standing solemnly, hands in the pockets of his Great War-era greatcoat.
Hitler and Lieselotte moved to the man, both smiling.
“Franz!” Hitler said, shaking the preferred hand. “Damn it is good to see you.”
“You too, Adi.” Franz Olbrecht offered a small smile, nodding politely to Lieselotte. His expression turned solemn. “I wish it had been under better circumstances.”
“Don’t we all,” stated Lieselotte. Adjusting her purse she stared at Olbrecht with those piercing pale blue eyes. “What’s happened?”
Olbrecht looked at Hitler. “Perceptive, isn’t she?”
“It’s half the reason I keep her around.”
“Only half?” Lieselotte commented, causing the two men to laugh. It did very much to lighten the mood.
After a moment, Hitler spoke. “What’s going to happen, Franz.”
Olbrecht prepared himself with a single shrug of the shoulders. “Gross has called for a Party Congress. The Central Committee is there in full force, as are all of the Front’s parliamentary representatives. The reason isn’t supposed to be disclosed but it is an open secret it is for your removal from the Front.”
Hitler frowned. “Do I have allies in there, Franz? Tell me the truth.”
“A fifth, perhaps even a quarter of the rank-and-file will follow you with little to no convincing. As for the Central Committee, I think only Seyss-Inquart will back any power play you try to make. Pfrimer arrived from Styria two days ago. He brought sixty of his Heimwehr along with him. Pfrimer wanted me to convey he will follow any order you give, especially if it involved storming the Hold and…”
“Stop.”
Hitler knew he looked annoyed but couldn’t help it.
“If I take power through force I am going to have to contend with upstarts trying to take my position, mimicking my success. Besides, the Front is too static, stiff. It is entrenched in its own morality. If we are to lead Austria in the direction we know it must embark upon, we must be both fluid and firm in ideology, tactics and implementation.”
“Another direction?” Olbrecht queried, not in dismay but in curiosity.
“I do not feel National Liberalism is the way forward anymore.”
Olbrecht exhaled noisily through his nose.
“Do you have an alternative, Adi?”
“Yes.” Hitler’s answer was resolute, it was quick.
“Then that is good enough for me. Come, Adi, they are waiting.”
As Olbrecht led Lieselotte and Hitler to a car he had parked outside the train station, Hitler could not help but feel a sense of finality over the whole affair. Finally the chains of the NLF were soon to be cast off.
And so one act is set to end, but little do they know the next is soon to begin.
+ + +
Arriving at the Hold was like visiting a long-lost friend. The building had changed little in the year he had been gone, but Hitler noted the armed men outside the building were not of Heimwehr units loyal to him. It was wise to not have Pfrimer arrive in force, as that would lead to a shoot out and potentially any chance Hitler had today to make an impact.
Hitler led the way, flanked by Olbrecht and Lieselotte. The double doors were opened by the guards, their eyes staring forward, as if he were just some visitor. Even from the entry hallway, they could hear the mumble and rumble of a large crowd in the main hall. Two more guards opened the door, basking them in the smell of sweat, cigarettes, and cologne and showing them the room was full almost to the seams. It would seem that it would be a well-attended party congress. Hundreds of people, almost exclusively men, waited in the dozens of wooden benches, many standing in the corner due to lack of seating.
At the back of the large stuffy room, facing the entrance doors, was a long wooden table. Six men were seated there. Hitler looked at Seyss-Inquart who offered a slight nod of greeting, while the other remained stone-faced. All but one that was. Ludwig von Hoffenberg was practically beaming, a large predatory smile on his face as Hitler approached. Hitler noted Olbrecht motioning for Liselotte to wait behind near the benches. This was Hitler’s moment after all, his trial in a sense.
Gustav gross, looking more haggard and lean than he had been a year ago, rose from his chair.
“Adolf Hitler, welcome home.”
There was some cheering and hand clapping from his supporters in the crowd but they were quickly hushed.
Gross continued. “You have been recalled, Herr Hitler, to face judgment from the Front. You have willingly and arrogantly ignored party orders, misrepresented the party and the Austrian government overseas in Japan, and have placed the country in an uncomfortable position. This is an out-”
“I did what I had to do for the Fatherland!” he shouted, surprising Gross by the interruption.
“Yes, well, it was-” the Party Chairman and Vice Chancellor of Austria began.
“Necesaary.”
Von Hoffenberg spoke up, his baritone easily carrying through the crowded room.
“Herr Hitler, you have no right to interrupt. This is to be a formal review of your record and the Central Committee will vote-”
“Shut up, Ludwig. I will not tolerate a worm such as you to question my methods or actions.”
Von Hoffenberg reddened with anger but before he could do or say anything, Gross put a hand on his shoulder to calm down the Deputy Chairman.
Hitler continued before Gross spoke.
“Let us not extend this sham. This conclave was called to lambast me and claim I had harmed the party and country. As for the Front, perhaps I did but perhaps I did not. As for the country, I have done nothing but empower and aid my beloved Vaterland.”
Hitler turned his back on the Central Committee to look out over the faces of men who sat there, some with hate on their face, some with hope, but a majority were simply there to see what developed.
“I went to Carinthia to help fellow Austrians in their struggle against the Yugoslavs. I did so against the orders of this ‘ever-so-wise’ Central Committee,” that last bit was loaded and delivered with scorn. “They said it was too dangerous, and that it would damage the Front politically. I cared not for politics or public image, I cared for action! Our countrymen were being murdered, driven from their homes, our men imprisoned, our women defiled and our children exploited. I went to Carinthia while they stayed behind in their comfortable homes. While they smoked cigars and drank the finest liquors, I was there fighting in the mud of Carinthia. I led men into battle, I fought and bled with them. Shared their pains and their victories. And you know what happened, my friends? What occurred down there?”
Hitler was feeling the room quiet down, everyone hanging onto his words. “We won,” he whispered, many leaning forward, straining to hear. “We defeated the Yugoslavs at every turn, we pushed them back. The only reason the border is where it is today is due entirely to Allied intervention. The Americans, the French, and the British, they wish to keep us broken and weak. And the Russians,” many of the men shifted in their seats or shuffled their feet at the mention of the eastern foe. “They want to destroy us. Us, who only attacked Serbia to bring murderers to justice.”
Hitler’s voice rose slowly, building in tempo.
“Surrounded by enemies this Committee, who lords above you all, were too afraid to take action. I helped drive the Yugoslav invaders back, our gains stolen from us by the Allies and gifted to that bastard state of Yugoslavia.”
Hitler turned back to the Committee and pointed at them, voice now almost shouting.
“I organized our electoral victory in 1923! Me and my propagandists, not them. We convinced hundreds of thousands of Austrians to vote National Liberal because we appealed to them, to their desires and hopes and dreams. And then I was set adrift, cast away to Japan. The success I had garnered for the Front was rewarded with an office far from the Fatherland, to a land many in Vienna did not care for. I was expected to do nothing, to wither on the vine, to stay out of the way.”
Hitler’s hand and voice lowered, calm in pitch but no less calm in delivery.
“They expected me to do nothing and I balked at that. For I am a man of action, of moving forward no matter the cost. I struck the Austro-Japanese Trade Agreement which will generate thousands of well-paying jobs in both countries. I had helped organize the Sakhalin Conference that bore fruit in the creation of a friendly Russian regime in North Sakhalin, and that checked Soviet aggression. I did all this and more, with no support from the Committee and in turn little support from the Front as a whole.
“Imagine, my friends, what we could accomplish if we were to shrug off the cowardice, uncertainty and idiocy of our supposed leaders-”
“Are you done?” Von Hoffenberg. The Deputy Chairman was now the color of spilled red wine, a vein visibly pulsing in his neck. “You are an upstart, feckless thug who-“
“Resigns.” Hitler reached into his coat pocket and threw out a small lapel pin with the words Nationalliberale Front encrusted on its surface. “My fate is my own. I hereby resign from this party and this farce. If any Here wish for Austria to lag behind its neighbors, to be weak and exposed to foreign intervention, and to led by men of weak will who did not fight in the trenches of the Great War, then stay.
“If you want to be led by a man of action, of vision and who places Austria above all, then hear me now. National Liberalism is not the way. This party’s leadership does not have the drive or ambition to succeed. They are the past, I am the future.”
And with that, Hitler turned and walked away, the room breaking out into arguments, some shouting slurs while others offered their support. It was to this chaotic cacophony that Hitler departed the hold, Lieselotte and Olbrecht in tow.
Though he was effectively penniless, had no outside support or a political structure to spring off of, Hitler nevertheless felt liberated.
Now came the next step.
Vienna, Austria
Republic of Austria
January 1925
Franz Olbrecht, Austrian National Councilman, a former Landwehr Lieutenant Colonel and an educated man of noble birth, was now relegated to door greeter.
“Welcome, welcome!” He said jovially to seven men who approached. He hoped his voice didn’t sound so desperate. “Go on inside, we have bagels and coffee. It’s warmer too.”
The men shrugged off the new year snow and trundled inside. Olbrecht checked his watch and sighed. He had hoped for more to come but they had a shoestring budget and could post only so many flyers. And the Front had been very persistent in tearing them down
It had been weeks since Hitler publicly resigned from the NLF. A few hundred had soon walked out, following Hitler to a nearby bierhaus where he had delivered an impromptu speech, full of fiery rhetoric and plans for the future. The crowd had responded with fervent passion.
Yet in the weeks that followed, very little happened. Hitler had been in a newly rented apartment with his closest advisors, outlining a political platform and name, as well as codifying all his thoughts and ideas written across several notebooks into one combined collection that Lieselotte transcribed away on a typewriter. It was both a political manifesto and autobiography. Hitler had come to call it Der Kampf. It was simple and very fitting.
The only noteworthy development, aside from party building, was Hitler’s wedding to Frau Aigner. He had proposed mere days after leaving the NLF, and she had accepted. Their wedding had taken place on New Year’s Eve with only a dozen people in attendance.
Now, only two weeks after 1924 had morphed into 1925 was Hitler at long last revealing his new political party.
After checking his watch again, Olbrecht closed the door to the building Hitler had rented, spending almost all of the money he and several other Hitlerites had pooled together. It was a warehouse in Floridsdorf District, it’s innards barren aside from a scattering of half-rotted boxes and recently purchased and salvaged seating. The business that had operated the warehouse as storage had gone bankrupt last year. Hitler had chosen it for that reason, to show that even with the NLF in power businesses were still closing and people were losing jobs. That, and because it was cheap. The air smelled moldy, only emphasizing the fact.
With the doors closed, Olbrecht was greeted with warmth from a score of iron cast empty oil barrels where thousands of devalued krones were being burned alongside newspapers, sending up smoke and embers. With the new schilling currency soon to be put in circulation, people were preparing their finances for the transition, but any banknote below 50,000 in value was practically worthless as money, more suited for fireplaces or toilet paper.
There were a few boxes and benches but almost no chairs. Those were reserved for the table at one end of the warehouse. Above the table was a banner that read:
Österreichische Sozialnationalistische Volkspartei. It was flanked by a Kruckenkreuz on either side.
While a mouthful, the name had been carefully selected by Hitler and Olbrecht. It had to appeal to a vast and varied array of people, from rural farmers to factory workers to wealthy businessmen.
There were around two hundred men and about a dozen women in the warehouse. They were in small groups, mingling and chatting away as they ate stale bagels and drank ersatz coffee. Olbrecht had hoped for more but knew the weather had played a factor in the low attendance, alongside many who were waiting to see what Hitler would do next.
Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg was waiting for him, hands in his pocket and a noticeable frown creasing his face.
“This is embarrassing,” he hissed to Olbrecht, head gesturing at the people present. “There’s room enough for a thousand, easily. Maybe more. Yet we can’t even fill out half the room. I bet you von Hoffenberg and Lutschounig will laugh their asses off when they hear about how few showed.”
“Easy, Ernst, easy. The weather is terrible out there. How many people do you think would trudge through a meter of snow with biting winds to attend a meeting on the edge of Vienna. Most of the busses and trams aren’t even operating today. More will come, Ernst. Give them time.”
As the only parliamentary member to attend this meeting, aside from Olbrecht himself, von Starhemberg held a fair amount of sway in the NLF. If he was convinced to join, then a betting man would guess more would follow. At least that was the theory. Most of the other pro-Hitler councilmen were privately excited by the unveiling of this new movement but refused to switch to the newfound ÖSNVP until it became more established.
The murmurs died down as Hitler entered. Two of the few Wolves remaining in Vienna had held the door open, their quasi-uniform and holstered pistols a symbol of militant strength. Olbrecht hoped no one knew how desperate the showing was.
Hitler moved to the center of the warehouse while his wife and Arthur Seyss-Inquart carefully carried out a large piece of thick paper to the table beneath the banner. If Hitler was disappointed by the attendance, he did not let it show.
“Greetings and welcome, national comrades, to the inaugural meeting of the Austrian Social National People’s Party.” There was a muted cheer as the onlookers took to their seats.
“It is perhaps prophetic that our new party should be officially born on such a day. A cold bitter day in a country led by cold disinterested men. Our undertaking, our ÖSNVP, will be the standard bearer of civilization and order that will set fire to the old world order, heralding a new dawn not just for Austria but Europe as a whole.”
Hitler spread his arms out. “We may be few today but mark my words, my fellow Social Nationalists, that in time we will be an army. An army dedicated to the revival and renewal of our great country. None shall stand against us and emerge victorious. We are the phoenix that will heal the Vaterland’s woes. We are the future.”
Hitler reached into his pocket and pulled out an ink pen. “Before I go over the founding Twenty-Three Points this new party will base its entire platform upon, let us first show our commitment to the cause.”
Hitler spun around and walked to the table beneath the banner. Olbrecht knew it featured the party’s name at the top, its Twenty-Three Point Platform, and the establishment of a party hierarchy with one titular leader in charge, bearing the rank and power of Führer. Hitler was to be that of course. While there would be a Central Committee, Hitler would make all final decisions. It was to avoid the in-fighting and slow nature of more democratic means of party leadership. It was to be one party with one leader, no more and no less.
It was sometimes strange to Olbrecht to follow the orders of his former adjutant. But Hitler was no longer a First Sergeant in the Landwehr. He was a political force by himself, a sort of storm where everything either joined or was thrown about into the wind.
Olbrecht followed Hitler, and he too was followed by von Starhemberg and Seyss-Inquart. Hitler reached the table and leaned over, signing his name at the top left of the empty space at the bottom. Hitler turned and offered Olbrecht the pen.
“To the future, Franz.”
“To the future… mein Führer.” Hitler smiled and patted him on the shoulder before moving down the line, shaking hands. Olbrecht leaned over the paper and signed, becoming Party Member #2 of the ÖSNVP.
