Chapter LXX
"Soldiers, the cause of peace is in your hands! Do not allow the counter-revolutionary generals to frustrate the great cause of peace, place them under guard in order to avert acts of summary justice unworthy of a revolutionary army and to prevent these generals from escaping the trial that awaits them. Maintain the strictest revolutionary and military order."
~ Vladimir Lenin
~ Vladimir Lenin
From the darkness of the early autumn morning the brightly lit hive of activity stood out amongst the Russian nighttime scenery. If those who could notice this feature on the landscape could have moved even closer they would have heard urgent shouts of German and the grunts and roars of unatural mechanical beasts. The local population had been told by their own representatives that fraternisation was to be avoided with the militaristic foreigners and their contraptions. After all, they were technically not there and soon that fiction would be a reality.
The air of emergency that abounded within the Kama tank school was only matched by that of confusion. The reason as to why several years of successful cooperation between the Reichswehr and the Soviets were at an end were greatly puzzling to many in the facility. The tank school had been the most promising development of the cooperation, even it had only been operating for a year.
Peter Klompf stood amongst his fellow officers and tankers in the mess hall, where the tables had been cleared away to the sides. Some swayed warily; their rest having been abruptly broken, whilst others whispered in intrigue as to what might be going on. The most bizarre rumours had been emanating from the fatherland over the last few days; of coup d'etat and revolution, treachery and plots. This had remained speculation as the base locked itself down, there were no longer any Russians in sight and no-one had seen a newspaper since they had last been present.
Peter, his friends Franz and Klaus, and the rest of the regulars had had to cancel their clandestine reading circle out of fear all of this was in their honour. They had known the risks of discussing Marxist texts in the midst of senior officers paranoid of Bolshevik infiltration. Such men might not have considered isolating and now closing off the base to have been too drastic if they had become aware that there was talk of Lenin and Hitler amongst the junior officers.
Awaiting the reasons for why all Reichswehr personnel had been summoned to the canteen, those involved in the late night activities stood awkwardly apart from each other, wary of common association and suspicious as to who if anyone had sold them out. Peter's heart sank when Major Joseph Harpe, "Hacher", or chopper, to his underlings when he wasn't in their presence, entered the canteen. The man was rabidly anti-communist and keen to sniff out any signs that the base situated deep within the Soviet Union might be being influenced from the outside. Filing through the room, Peter felt his heart skip and Harpe stared directly at him momentarily, before walking past without a word and standing on top of a table to face the assembled men.
To the surprise of Peter and many others, Harpe's face broke out into a smile.
"Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to announce that we are leaving this godforsaken land. We are going home to heed the call of our Fatherland in its hour of need."
Harpe paused to let the declaration sink in, although inwardly Peter was more relieved than shocked. It looked like this wasn't about the reading group after all.
"To the surprise of very few, the Republic has finally ceased to function at a time of national crisis. Chancellor Von Shleicher and President Hindenburg have taken the necessary steps to ensure the survival of our nation, and this will be via the return of its sacred imperial traditions, those which united Germany and made her great!"
Harpe looked slightly pertrubed that this news had evoked more surprise than rousing celebration, even as he carried on.
"We progress towards a new era, but there remains the cancer in our midst. The Communists and the Social Democrats have joined hands in an attempt to reduce our country to one of anarchy and Bolshevism. It is clear that they have been planning this for some time, and we must play our part in eliminating them. Although their allies have launched their assault on the Fatherland, the Russians have let us leave in return for copies of some of our own innovations here. They are treacherous, even towards their own ilk. For all the good it will do them! We shall crush their 'comrades' and protect our homeland so that, from inside or without, they may never threaten Germany again!"
There was some cheering now and Peter joined in too, keen to avoid any suspicion that he might be part of the 'cancer'. He noticed some of those who had attended the reading group doing the same.
"German industry", Harpe continued, "will be able to begin large-scale production of tanks almost as soon as we return home, and this is directly due to the testing conducted here. We should be proud of ourselves but soon there will be no need to hide in the shadows. We now have a Government that will make good on the Versailles betrayal of the November criminals and then, at home, we can develop an armoured force that will be the envy of the world and the dread of our enemies!"
The cheering broke out once again, even as Peter began to wonder if he would returning home on the right side. With the bloodlust being heightened amongst his fellow Reichswehr officers, he realised he would have to do his best to hide his hesitation to the world.
The homecoming would not require a long wait. With ruthless efficiency the base was stripped and packed ready to journey back to Germany under Soviet supervision. The friendships and relationships built, formally and private, between the Germans and the Soviets were left by the wayside amidst the new German regime, one that was eager to cut itself away from the Soviet state that had been the Weimar Republic's closest thing to a friend.
From Moscow, Stalin grudgingly had to face the reality that the Soviet Union would be alone in the world once more. His next move was a source of great apprehension, as the Germans returned home to a land tearing itself apart.
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The still is from Pearl Jam's Do The Evolution.
