Himmler's Germany: The Agrarian Totalitarian (?)
===
"Heil Himmler," the SS man belted, sticking his arm straight out like a bolt.
"Heil Himmler," Alois said, returning the salute with somewhat less enthusiasm. The black-uniformed guard passed his papers back to him, and Frank found himself back in the German Quarter, a small bundle of rations pressed to his chest as though it was his child. Behind him, he heard the familiar call of "Papers, please!" repeated itself as another man tried to get ingress.
Alois looked around him. Even inside the Quarter, Staatspolizei men paced the streets, Walthers and batons swinging from their hips, grinning to each other but starting under their visors with eyes of cold steel. Security had only been going up ever since the uprising in Reichsgau-Weichselland. Eyes devoid of hope watched the men in Prussian blue and jackboots as they carried on their way.
The war was going poorly. Himmler's war. Rosenberg's speech after the disaster in the Caucasus only confirmed what everyone already knew. The Soviets were coming, and there was only so much the army could do to stop them. It had stopped becoming a question of "if", but "when".
Alois had cursed himself every day since then for accepting the position in Reval. But back then everyone thought the war would be over by Christmas. The Baltics represented new opportunities for everyone, so the propagandists claimed. New lands for the Aryan population to take charge of, which they'd been robbed of by the weaklings in Weimar in the last Great War. Alois had never bought into that line about "Aryanism" and the "Master Race", not truly. But as long as the entire civil service and now all the Junkers were parroting what Himmler and Weber before him were saying, why not?
That was the line of thinking which had brought him here, to Estonia, land of the future for the Germanic peoples, and just across the border from the Russians. Lebensraum indeed. The last thing anyone expected in there was life. Not least for his son. His son, sacrificed on the altar of the Nazi Party by the propagandists and the generals. All he'd received was a letter allegedly signed by the Reichsführer himself expressing his regrets not for his valiant sacrifice, undoubtedly face-down in a muddy field outside of Leningrad, but that he would no longer be able to serve the cause of Germany and witness the achievement of the eternal Reich.
Himmler's cause. Himmler's Germany. Himmler's "Thousand-Year-Reich".
That's when it all had gone wrong. Alois knew that everyone thought the same. He didn't need to ask them to know. He just had to see the look in their eyes. Weber had known when to stop. Weber had retaken Danzig, conquered Poland, and defeated the French and the British decisively and reversed the betrayal at Versailles. What had Himmler done? Betrayed that Bolshevist Czar in the Kremlin and sent Germany heedlessly rushing into Russia, promising the war would be over by Christmas.
Then Christmas came, and the youth of Germany began their slow death at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad. And all because Weber had dropped dead in the Reich Chancellery one night. Finger after accusatory finger pointed left and right, and Himmler and the SS had come out on top of the bloodbath that followed. Himmler, Rosenberg and Küchler. Those were the architects of the Drang nach Osten, the death-grapple in which the Wehrmacht now found itself, unable to let go despite being choked to death by the Soviet war machine.
He pushed open the door to his house. The middle hinge hung open in a mocking grin. The handyman had claimed to arrive "next week" two weeks ago. Everything was short, especially machine parts. Greta wasn't home yet. Probably still at the factory. She'd just fallen into the age-range of women that the NS-Frauenschaft had drafted into munitions work. Now the look in her eyes matched the same dead one all of Alois's fellow old men had. Working her fingers to the bone to make more guns, more bombs, all of which would end their lives on the Eastern Front. Manufacturing destruction.
Alois flipped open the paper from his ration bundle. The headline read, in the new stark font, JAPAN HOLDS OFF AMERICAN ADVANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES, stating the landings were meeting with "aggressive resistance" from the "fearless defenders of the Japanese Empire", along with the usual business about Germany standing by its allies in their time of crisis. Hirohito's war had become Himmler's war too, the day that the American Willkie and the Englishman Halifax had come to an agreement concerning Japan "and its allies." The day the Americans would enter would be the final nail in the German coffin.
He undid the strings holding his ration-package shut, spilling its contents on the table. No meat again. Bread and butter again, and the dreck which passed for coffee.
"Heavy reading there, Bill?"Alois looked around him. Even inside the Quarter, Staatspolizei men paced the streets, Walthers and batons swinging from their hips, grinning to each other but starting under their visors with eyes of cold steel. Security had only been going up ever since the uprising in Reichsgau-Weichselland. Eyes devoid of hope watched the men in Prussian blue and jackboots as they carried on their way.
The war was going poorly. Himmler's war. Rosenberg's speech after the disaster in the Caucasus only confirmed what everyone already knew. The Soviets were coming, and there was only so much the army could do to stop them. It had stopped becoming a question of "if", but "when".
Alois had cursed himself every day since then for accepting the position in Reval. But back then everyone thought the war would be over by Christmas. The Baltics represented new opportunities for everyone, so the propagandists claimed. New lands for the Aryan population to take charge of, which they'd been robbed of by the weaklings in Weimar in the last Great War. Alois had never bought into that line about "Aryanism" and the "Master Race", not truly. But as long as the entire civil service and now all the Junkers were parroting what Himmler and Weber before him were saying, why not?
That was the line of thinking which had brought him here, to Estonia, land of the future for the Germanic peoples, and just across the border from the Russians. Lebensraum indeed. The last thing anyone expected in there was life. Not least for his son. His son, sacrificed on the altar of the Nazi Party by the propagandists and the generals. All he'd received was a letter allegedly signed by the Reichsführer himself expressing his regrets not for his valiant sacrifice, undoubtedly face-down in a muddy field outside of Leningrad, but that he would no longer be able to serve the cause of Germany and witness the achievement of the eternal Reich.
Himmler's cause. Himmler's Germany. Himmler's "Thousand-Year-Reich".
That's when it all had gone wrong. Alois knew that everyone thought the same. He didn't need to ask them to know. He just had to see the look in their eyes. Weber had known when to stop. Weber had retaken Danzig, conquered Poland, and defeated the French and the British decisively and reversed the betrayal at Versailles. What had Himmler done? Betrayed that Bolshevist Czar in the Kremlin and sent Germany heedlessly rushing into Russia, promising the war would be over by Christmas.
Then Christmas came, and the youth of Germany began their slow death at the gates of Moscow and Leningrad. And all because Weber had dropped dead in the Reich Chancellery one night. Finger after accusatory finger pointed left and right, and Himmler and the SS had come out on top of the bloodbath that followed. Himmler, Rosenberg and Küchler. Those were the architects of the Drang nach Osten, the death-grapple in which the Wehrmacht now found itself, unable to let go despite being choked to death by the Soviet war machine.
He pushed open the door to his house. The middle hinge hung open in a mocking grin. The handyman had claimed to arrive "next week" two weeks ago. Everything was short, especially machine parts. Greta wasn't home yet. Probably still at the factory. She'd just fallen into the age-range of women that the NS-Frauenschaft had drafted into munitions work. Now the look in her eyes matched the same dead one all of Alois's fellow old men had. Working her fingers to the bone to make more guns, more bombs, all of which would end their lives on the Eastern Front. Manufacturing destruction.
Alois flipped open the paper from his ration bundle. The headline read, in the new stark font, JAPAN HOLDS OFF AMERICAN ADVANCE IN THE PHILIPPINES, stating the landings were meeting with "aggressive resistance" from the "fearless defenders of the Japanese Empire", along with the usual business about Germany standing by its allies in their time of crisis. Hirohito's war had become Himmler's war too, the day that the American Willkie and the Englishman Halifax had come to an agreement concerning Japan "and its allies." The day the Americans would enter would be the final nail in the German coffin.
He undid the strings holding his ration-package shut, spilling its contents on the table. No meat again. Bread and butter again, and the dreck which passed for coffee.
===
The OSS man looked up from his copy of The Night of the Swastika. "Nah, science fiction."
"What's it about?"
"'Counter-history', if that's a thing. The Führer gets this guy Himmler on his side before he gets to power instead of sidelining him, and when he chokes on a schnitzel after peacing the Brits out Himmler takes over. Great Patriotic War goes way worse for the Nazis because Himmler's a dumbass and all the good generals got purged, and Germany loses by '45."
The SIS agent chuckled sardonically. "Sounds like a fantasy world."
"Wish we were both in that one?"
"It would mean we wouldn't have to sneak into Castle Wolfsburg tonight."
B.J. smiled. "Wouldn't miss that for the world, Wes."
"Heh. I suppose you wouldn't, Blazko. Get your kit, we're almost there."
High in the skies over Prussia, the C-47's engines roared, ready to drop the two spies off.
