alternatehistory.com

Comrades, and friends, before today's update I would like to take a little moment to thank everyone who has already voted for this TL in the Turtledove poll for Best Early Twentieth Century Timeline. It's such a great feeling to know people are enjoying the TL that much and I hope to you all continue to give me your thoughts, positive or negative, as time goes on.

So, thanks again, and without further ado:





The little blue tram seemed like a miniature Bavarian flag as it trundled through the city. Freshly painted in the midst of the chaos that had engulfed the nation, it shone out in a city still far too full of grey, burned, blood stained rubble.

Peter hadn’t been into Munich for such a long time that he didn’t recognise many of the changes that had taken place in the city since his last visit. As the tram carried him and his mother down its usual route it was nonetheless quite obvious that there something had gone wrong.

It had been less than a week since the police had arrived at their house to chase away all of the people that the man with the bad breath had forced them to live with. His father had been shouting at them for some time beforehand but most had refused to leave, insisting they had a right to stay, as if they owned the place. By the time they had departed with the police Peter’s father had still been flustered, but he was smiling for the first time in weeks. Peter had smiled back as his father told him about how the heroic patriots had defeated the nasty men who had broken into their home, and though Peter was at an age where many children began to become suspicious of adults simplifying stories it seemed as if his father genuinely believed in this version, despite it sounding like something out of a fairy tale.

Peter had believed him at the time, but looking at the city was giving him a different perspective, there were soldiers everywhere but they were not particularly gallant looking. The tram had ground to a halt at the sight of a decorators hand cart having lost a wheel whilst trying to cross the line. An argument had broken out between the tram driver and the decorator, only for it to be resolved by a group of the soldiers his father had referred to as Freikorps kicking the decorator in his rear and dumping the cart on the other side of the rails, sending varnish and wallpaper flying everywhere. Some inside the carriage had laughed at the decorators exaggerated reaction to his misfortune but Peter wasn’t one of them. His schoolmaster had warned the class never to encourage bullies and the scene he had witnessed certainly resembled the playground, only with adults.

Munich seemed to be full of decorators and other construction workers all of, as if the city was trying to rebuild itself from the events of the last few months as quickly as possible. Perhaps to forget what had happened. There was certainly much repairing to do, many buildings he thought had seen before were hard to recognise as the tram went by, burned out and deserted. Others had windows missing, or occasionally doors, as if there had been a series of robberies in the heart of the city. Some shop fronts were covered in ash, as if they’d witnessed a large fire, every now and then there were vacant patches of pavement utterly covered in something resembling dog mess, sticking out due to the pedestrians trying to avoid walking on them.

There were many people out shopping, enough for the noisy construction to be drowned out by the thousands of conversations taking place. If the city was rebuilding it was also restocking, having been subject to a blockade that his parents had both told him the bad men who had stolen their house were responsible for. Shops that had been damaged in the fighting had hung canvasses over their shattered windows declaring themselves open for business and people from outside the city had brought in carts much like the decorators to provide an alternative source for those not too keen on the long cue that seemed to be outside every bakers, butchers and greengrocers.

Peter had noticed one specialising in chocolate and asked his mother if he could have some. She quickly pulled him away and said she would get him some somewhere else. Peter was a patient boy but he did wonder what was wrong with the chocolate at that particular stall and whether it had anything to do with the confectioner’s strange hat and curled hair.

As the crowds grew ever larger Pete’s mother continued to hold his hand, the simultaneous rebuilding and restocking of the city inevitably led to some disagreement over priorities and a lot of people insisted that people stay away from them as they sawed wood, hammered signs back on to shop fronts or tried to scrub the reddish-brown strains that everyone was avoiding off of the pavement. The Freikorps and the soldiers watched all of this without any attempt to get involved as if they were heavily armed but lazy policeman, only when a loud argument broke out could Peter see them walking over to break it up. It seemed as if they were happy for the city to get itself back on its feet without their interference provided the locals were quiet about it.

Peter could understand that, though he did wonder if they had to be so mean and whether they enjoyed kicking people and destroying their carts or whether it was simply their jobs. He thought once again about how they didn’t seem much different from the men he had first seen standing outside his house on his way back from school, concluding that it was probably something he should keep to himself, until he got a far more vivid reminder.

The man with the bad breath had shaved off his moustache but it was undoubtedly him all the same. Peter recognised his black eyes and his intense face as he walked down the street towards them, carrying a three sided box full of bricks over his shoulder. Suddenly his mother shrieked and Peter realised she had seen him as well. Expecting another argument the soldiers were already on their way over to her when she pointed directly at the man, whose expression had suddenly contorted into a menacing glare as he stopped both of them before becoming neutral almost as he attempted to ignore the pair and walk by them. Peter’s mother was having none of it.

As she began to explain why she had shouted at the man he began to walk faster, still trying to navigate his load of bricks around the packed crowd, before dropping the act altogether and pushing his way through the lines of people and threw his bricks to one side, breaking into a sprint. People shrieked and one man used curse words that Peter had never heard as the bricks went flying into the air, creating a gap in the crowd which allowed for the man who had broken into their house to gain more speed. The soldiers were in hot pursuit and even as they disappeared from view Peter and his mother stood speechless. Both hoping the criminal would be caught, and both dreading that if not he might come back to their home to wreak vengeance on the pair who had broken his cover.

Peter quickly came to the conclusion that the soldiers were heroic after all, he had already forgotten about the incident with the decorator.

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No history bit today as this is something of a two-parter.