Liebknecht’s courage was the union of his love for every man and his discernment that in the period we live in individual suffering cannot be helped without beginning the life and death struggle for socialism. He fell in the raging struggle. And thousands will follow him to the martyr’s death until naked, hungering, wound-bedecked humanity will have the leisure to remember its martyrs with love.
~ Karl Radek,
At the Martyr’s Graveside
Like many of the Hotel Furst Bismarck’s current denizens, Gerda Muller was well aware that she would never have been accepted into the hotel under normal circumstances, nor would she have expected to see revolutionary war orchestrated amongst crystal and china. But here she was, and such was the nature of the United Front’s operations room.
Gerda felt a burning sensation on her fingers and quickly crushed the remnants of her cigarette into one of the many ash trays placed within the operations room before leaning back on the desk where it sat, tapping her foot nervously whilst gazing at the chalkboards detailing the ongoing battles to the south.
Part of her wished she was there.
Having survived the crushing of the Spartacist revolt over a decade beforehand she knew it was an irrational thought to have when she was safe to observe the reports of the battle from a great distance with a better picture than anyone on the ground but still, she was also aware these battles might well decide everything; whether the revolution would succeed, whether the decade of her life spent fighting for Communism had meant anything, whether she would ever see her daughter again.
She didn’t want to dwell on leaving Rosa to one of the safehouses that might well have been compromised now Von Schleicher had seized control of Berlin. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if her daughter was caught alongside other Communists. The Reichswehr probably wouldn’t murder a child in cold blood but the Blackshirts…
It probably had been safer to leave her with Communist sympathisers who knew how to hide people than bring her here, that decision had been made now and she had to rely on it being the right one, but whilst updates on the battle remained sparse her mind was left to linger on such things.
“Time for a report!” Adolf Hitler shouted while striding into the room with a spring in his step.This was his moment.
At least for now,
Gerda shuddered at the thought.
If things went badly here then having to deal with Hitler lapsing into another panicked delirium would be the least of her worries but for now he seemed to be in his prime and in control. Everything that went on in the operations room was need-to-know in the newly assembled People’s Guard, as a Communist functionary Gerda wasn’t technically meant to even be present but here was someone who had the authority to demand to know what was going on without incurring protest.
“It seems that most of the Reichswehr forces in the central attacks are now engaged, and from what we can gather a large number of those forces trapped in the west are attacking alongside them. At any rate we’re holding on for the moment at the major rail heads although we haven’t heard anything from some smaller stations which likely means they’re either too heavily arrested to respond or they’ve already been overrun.”
That last comment sent a wave of discomfort across the room
“Still,” Kahle continued, “as long as there aren’t any large new arrivals of enemy reinforcements, and we haven’t had any signs of such, this is as bad as it’s going to get. It’s a matter of waiting to see who can continue to hold now, and for how long.”
Again, Kahle’s laconic description of the situation didn’t inspire much optimism. Gerda absentmindedly started clicking her fingers, and looked down at her yellowing hands to see they were shaking. She coughed before lighting another cigarette. Ernst Mehr was pacing up and down at the other side of the room and to her annoyance she noticed he was doing the same. Agitated as she was she didn’t want to share his worries, even if they belonged to everyone else gathered there. She swore under her breath as the units on the chalkboard were readjusted but in a way that was difficult to make any real sense of.
“Excellent, now we’ll have the decision at last!” Hitler announced confidently, apparently immune to the tension throughout the room or perhaps trying to alleviate it. Apparently content with the situation either way, he turned to Gerda.
“When can I get on the radio? We must spread this news across Germany.with the utmost urgency!”
“There’s a planned announcement at 12, you should be able to go on after that '' Having a hand in Radio Einheitsfront had been one of the many plates Gerda had needed to help spin since the relocation or creation of so many different operations in Hamburg. Goebbels had actually been doing an impressive job at the Billwerder-Moorflet transmitter she had had to admit but the programming remained somewhat erratic. She had left with a mix of people trying to encourage uprisings across the country and maintenance of the General Strike whilst also providing necessary news and continuing some popular programs from the previous operators of the transmitter such as the weekly Hamburg harbour concerts.
“There’s a special announcement planned at 12 in regards to the current situation on the basis that the Reichswehr attacks could be confirmed, which doesn’t seem to be in doubt any longer.” She shot a disapproving look at Kahle who had dithered on such updates all morning before Hitler had demanded them.
“It would probably be opportune to fit you in after then, Ten Minutes of Esperanto can always be rescheduled.”
“Are we sure it’s wise for you to make the broadcast? Perhaps a less partial figure would work better to emphasise how broad the fighting coalition is.” Gerda cursed inwardly again, she had tried to lighten the tension herself but Ernst had had to interject with his narrow party interests regardless.
“I made my broadcasts in the Ruhr.” Hitler snapped back.
“Yes but now we can summon a far greater legitimacy than you ever could in the Ruhr, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a voice but a less...objectionable figure might be better placed for-”
“I don’t think this is particularly relevant to the matter at hand,” Kahle interjected. At that moment his colleague Ludwig Renn rushed in from the radio room adjacent to the hall in which he stood, his face was fraught. It seemed whatever had happened had served to emphasise Kahle’s point.
“Our colleagues from the Rural People’s Movement in Holstein radioed in a few hours ago to warn us about what appeared to be a flotilla headed west on the coast. Our comrades in control of Cuxhaven have just confirmed several dozen large ships bearing the Reichsmarine flag approaching them but not engaging. It appears that they’re now headed further down the Elbe.”
“Are they coming here?” Kahle asked, somewhat frantically.
“We don’t know for certain but until we can confirm otherwise I’d say that has to be the presumption, but I’m not sure whether that helps to be honest,” Renn faded off as he looked to the chalkboard detailing the disposition of the forces currently battling for the railheads.
A battle, as far as Gerda understood, which they had sunk everything into.
The assembled union officials and militiamen that ran the operations room hastily dug out whatever maps they could find of the Elbe estuary and its route to Hamburg. The battle to their south had become peripheral all of a sudden.
Kahle looked to Ernst and Gerda, and then to Hitler, seeming to be about to question whether they should still be there. Gerda patted Hitler on the shoulder and whispered into his ear.
“I don’t trust Mehr to leave with this information.”
Hitler nodded in acknowledgement and waved his hand for Kahle to proceed without delay. If Ernst had been any the wiser he did not indicate it, fixating instead on the maps now in front of them.
“How much time would it take for them to get here?” He asked.
“A matter of hours,” Kahle replied.
“Not enough time to evacuate,” Gerda added, trying to second guess Ernst.
“Definitely not, we would lose almost everything in the attempt. Our entire apparatus.” Hitler muttered before looking to Renn.
“What forces do we have to hand in the city?”
“Almost nothing! Thanks to-thanks to the ongoing strategy,” Renn remained shaken by the news he had delivered, but was conscious enough to catch himself before saying something he might regret later. He was still a member of the KPD after all. “we’d be limited to a couple of thousand people we could arm and even then they couldn’t be properly organised by the time the flotilla is likely to arrive.”
“Hamburg is built for sieges, it has walls, mounts,” Kahle argued, “we can hold out in the city for some time until the situation develops to our advantage elsewhere.”
“No, once they’re grounded here it’s over, they’ll swarm over us until the city is theirs like they did in Berlin. Any move like this isn’t meant to be protracted, we would need to throw them back before however many troops those ships are carrying can disembark.” Renn smacked his hand on the Hamburg docks, as if trying to mentally envision such an assault.
“And you’ve just pointed out we don’t have the forces to carry out such an attack!” In the heat of the situation, Kahle was also beginning to lose his officer’s reserve.
“Not if we do to the docks what I did to Castle Wetter,” Hitler stated coolly, before turning to Ernst, “you do recall what else I did in the Ruhr, don’t you Comrade Mehr?”
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Ernst Mehr stood aghast, saying little whilst the nature of the plan was laid out in front of him.
He imagined himself as Atlas with the weight of German history bearing down on him and considered the cruel joke his political career had been. He had been made witness to the birth of the republic that sharp November day in 1918 when everything was in chaos yet everything seemed possible and now here he was in November 1930; surrounded by Communists, with Fascists bearing down on them all. Republican dreams extinguished and the last bastion of the republic about to be burned to the ground in front of him.
It was all too much and he wanted to leave. His eyes darted across the room instinctively before he noticed that not everyone was distracted by the plans being put together.
The Communist woman, the one who had accused him of impregnating her and then leaving her to bring up their child alone was staring at him accusingly, he wondered if she might be waiting for him to try and leave before accusing him of desertion. Perhaps, in her vindictive Bolshevik mind, putting him up against the wall was the only passion to be pursued whilst her demagogue Hitler indulged in his own passion for arson.
Indeed, even as the others began to depart to put the scheme into action, she stood staring at him. Her face was worn, more weathered than it had been on the night they had spent together over a decade ago, her blonde hair had grown darker, her blue eyes geyer but a fire burned inside them which he couldn’t quite recall from them playfully arguing concepts in the carefree days of post-war Berlin. Her hands were,
In her hand was a gun.
Ernst wondered why she had a gun on her person but that was academic now, she had her finger on the trigger, pointed at him. In response he merely raised his hands gently towards her, unable to process what was happening.
“Remember when I promised you wouldn’t live to get the chance to survive on your knees if all of this fell apart?” Her voice was almost sing-song.
He could only nod, thinking back to the cheers at the United Front being proclaimed in the vagrant’s mission and how seething she had been with his presence then.
“Well, now we both have a chance to die on our feet.” She stretched out her other hand, and Ernst shook it weakly before watching her walk off to attend to the plans at hand with the others.
Ernst stood staring into space before an aide brushing past him brought him back to reality.
Back to purpose.
He began towards the offices of the SPD within the hotel but hearing the church bells were already starting to ring outside he began running, until, out of breath, he banged his fist on the open door to gain the attention of the bemused party members around him. It was at that moment he asked a question he had never quiered before in his political career,
“Does anyone here have any experience with demolitions or flammable materials?”
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The painting is
Conversation in a train compartment by Zoya Odaynik-Samoilenko