Part 82, Chapter 1257
Chapter One Thousand Two Hundred Fifty-Seven
23rd December 1957
Berlin
“Knowing that people can be both right and wrong at the same time is a large part of being an adult” Berg said, careful to make sure that Kiki didn’t think she was being made fun of. “You will certainly see that a lot in this profession.”
It was obvious from the look on Kiki’s face that she didn’t care for that answer and it showed exactly how far she had to go. While almost an adult, she still tended to look at the world in the simple absolutes of a child. There was a great deal of certainty in that sort of thinking. Berg knew that Kiki had much of that certainty blown apart by recent events, the rest of it would go in due time. In Nora Berg’s personal opinion, simple answers were for children and the likes of Katherine von Mischner.
At issue was the conflict that Kiki had seen play out over the prior month between the Mischner sisters and how that compared with her own difficulties with her own sisters. Marie and Victoria had been caught with their hand in the proverbial till. Their actions were not because they were poor students, they had just wanted to impress everyone with how clever they were. At the moment they were suspended over the time when the examination they had attempted to cheat on was taking place. That meant that they were going to have to repeat the last term and would be far behind their classmates. According the Kiki, there was a third girl involved who had been their look out, but she had somehow escaped notice. Vicky and Rea had refused to tell anyone who that was. Kiki said that it wasn’t out of any personal loyalty, the twins wanted to get revenge without their school’s staff interfering.
Unfortunately for Kiki, guilt by association was a very real thing and the school was examining her academic record in case she wasn’t just providing a positive influence on her sisters. It wasn’t fair, but that was also life. Life was seldom fair, the sooner that Kiki and even her sisters learned that, the better off they would be.
Today, Kiki was having lunch with Berg as she did on most Mondays. Tomorrow being Christmas Eve, Kiki was grappling with the reality that this holiday would be very different this year. While she was looking forward to spending the holiday with the family that had taken her in. Kiki was still trying to come to terms with the gratuitous slap that her mother had given her and Jehane Thomas-Romanova during her last hours by pointedly refusing to see them. When Kiki had fallen apart over being told that she would have to change her educational plans, it was a lot more than just disappointment. Even Kiki admitted that she had suffered a dissociative episode during the hours that followed. Worrying signs.
“Have you got plans for Wednesday?” Berg asked.
“It’s Christmas day” Kiki replied, “Not a whole lot to do.”
“Nonsense” Berg said, “It’s your sixteenth birthday, it should be special.”
“My mother had this idea that I was going to have this grand introduction to Society” Kiki said.
“We both know that was never something that you wanted” Berg replied, “At the same time you ought to make a request, something completely frivolous and impractical.”
Kiki smiled at that.
Washington D.C.
The conversation from a few days earlier had intrigued Averell. There was a man who put into practice much of the policy of a country that was a rival power, yet beyond what was in the official intelligence reports and a few press releases. Markgraf Emil von Holz, born in Jena, Thuringia on February the 28th, 1900. His wife Maria was the Editor in Chief of the Berliner Daily. While Averell had heard Holz’s name, he was far more familiar with men who were more outgoing yet were his subordinates. Erwin Rommel, the current head of the German Army had written a series of books that were studied at West Point. Walter Horst, an extremely aggressive and outspoken General also had a book out. Oddly the State Department said that Nina Sjostedt, Horst’s wife was an American citizen. Jacob Schmidt not only had a book out, but the CIA and NSA had entire sections devoted to keeping an eye on his activities. More powerful than all of them was this man who might have been considered reclusive, seeming to care more about riding motorcycles than his public image.
When Averell had called the CIA to see if anyone knew anything more in depth regarding the Field Marshal, they had sent over someone from their audio-visual team. “To understand von Holz you need to look farther afield” The AV man had said and then he started pulling film cans out of a canvas sack he had brought with him. “We have the man himself and then we have Jochen Loewe, who is more like the General than he is prepared to admit.”
What followed was watching the films, they were intended for an international audience, so they were subtitled. Jochen Loewe was a fiction, created to show the adventures of a man many regarded as a hero without calling him by name. The name Loewe itself was derived from the German word for Lion which spoke volumes. The first film “Souville Hill” depicted a young soldier who given a field commission by a Colonel with murderous intent and ordered to attack a fortress atop a hill. According to the AV man that was what had actually happened.
The next film “Arganda Bridge” which the AV man said was the film that broke the Loewe series out from the B-Reel into feature films was set in Spain during the Civil War there. By then, Loewe was a renegade Colonel leading a Regiment in Spain who finds himself thrust into the role of Division Commander after a harrowing landing killed off everyone senior to him. According to the AV man the film supposedly depicted what many in the German Airborne considered their baptism by fire. It was a good movie, the scene of the taking of the bridge was done in one long single take that was ten minutes in length and the way it was shot, putting the camera in the middle of the action was considered extremely innovative at the time. The part that was most surprising was how the movie ended. After holding the bridge against extremely long odds the paratroopers withdrew across it and blew it up. Then they marched off into the sunset, singing patriotic songs as one last screw you to the Spanish troops who they had just ceded the field to in order to get a strategic victory.
Added into the second film was a substantial amount of anti-Soviet propaganda, not surprising considering when it was made. There were also elements of romance, it didn’t take much imagination to realize that the woman who came to the bridge with the press pool was based on Maria Acker. The conclusion that Averell reached was that Emil von Holz was a complex and extremely dangerous man.
23rd December 1957
Berlin
“Knowing that people can be both right and wrong at the same time is a large part of being an adult” Berg said, careful to make sure that Kiki didn’t think she was being made fun of. “You will certainly see that a lot in this profession.”
It was obvious from the look on Kiki’s face that she didn’t care for that answer and it showed exactly how far she had to go. While almost an adult, she still tended to look at the world in the simple absolutes of a child. There was a great deal of certainty in that sort of thinking. Berg knew that Kiki had much of that certainty blown apart by recent events, the rest of it would go in due time. In Nora Berg’s personal opinion, simple answers were for children and the likes of Katherine von Mischner.
At issue was the conflict that Kiki had seen play out over the prior month between the Mischner sisters and how that compared with her own difficulties with her own sisters. Marie and Victoria had been caught with their hand in the proverbial till. Their actions were not because they were poor students, they had just wanted to impress everyone with how clever they were. At the moment they were suspended over the time when the examination they had attempted to cheat on was taking place. That meant that they were going to have to repeat the last term and would be far behind their classmates. According the Kiki, there was a third girl involved who had been their look out, but she had somehow escaped notice. Vicky and Rea had refused to tell anyone who that was. Kiki said that it wasn’t out of any personal loyalty, the twins wanted to get revenge without their school’s staff interfering.
Unfortunately for Kiki, guilt by association was a very real thing and the school was examining her academic record in case she wasn’t just providing a positive influence on her sisters. It wasn’t fair, but that was also life. Life was seldom fair, the sooner that Kiki and even her sisters learned that, the better off they would be.
Today, Kiki was having lunch with Berg as she did on most Mondays. Tomorrow being Christmas Eve, Kiki was grappling with the reality that this holiday would be very different this year. While she was looking forward to spending the holiday with the family that had taken her in. Kiki was still trying to come to terms with the gratuitous slap that her mother had given her and Jehane Thomas-Romanova during her last hours by pointedly refusing to see them. When Kiki had fallen apart over being told that she would have to change her educational plans, it was a lot more than just disappointment. Even Kiki admitted that she had suffered a dissociative episode during the hours that followed. Worrying signs.
“Have you got plans for Wednesday?” Berg asked.
“It’s Christmas day” Kiki replied, “Not a whole lot to do.”
“Nonsense” Berg said, “It’s your sixteenth birthday, it should be special.”
“My mother had this idea that I was going to have this grand introduction to Society” Kiki said.
“We both know that was never something that you wanted” Berg replied, “At the same time you ought to make a request, something completely frivolous and impractical.”
Kiki smiled at that.
Washington D.C.
The conversation from a few days earlier had intrigued Averell. There was a man who put into practice much of the policy of a country that was a rival power, yet beyond what was in the official intelligence reports and a few press releases. Markgraf Emil von Holz, born in Jena, Thuringia on February the 28th, 1900. His wife Maria was the Editor in Chief of the Berliner Daily. While Averell had heard Holz’s name, he was far more familiar with men who were more outgoing yet were his subordinates. Erwin Rommel, the current head of the German Army had written a series of books that were studied at West Point. Walter Horst, an extremely aggressive and outspoken General also had a book out. Oddly the State Department said that Nina Sjostedt, Horst’s wife was an American citizen. Jacob Schmidt not only had a book out, but the CIA and NSA had entire sections devoted to keeping an eye on his activities. More powerful than all of them was this man who might have been considered reclusive, seeming to care more about riding motorcycles than his public image.
When Averell had called the CIA to see if anyone knew anything more in depth regarding the Field Marshal, they had sent over someone from their audio-visual team. “To understand von Holz you need to look farther afield” The AV man had said and then he started pulling film cans out of a canvas sack he had brought with him. “We have the man himself and then we have Jochen Loewe, who is more like the General than he is prepared to admit.”
What followed was watching the films, they were intended for an international audience, so they were subtitled. Jochen Loewe was a fiction, created to show the adventures of a man many regarded as a hero without calling him by name. The name Loewe itself was derived from the German word for Lion which spoke volumes. The first film “Souville Hill” depicted a young soldier who given a field commission by a Colonel with murderous intent and ordered to attack a fortress atop a hill. According to the AV man that was what had actually happened.
The next film “Arganda Bridge” which the AV man said was the film that broke the Loewe series out from the B-Reel into feature films was set in Spain during the Civil War there. By then, Loewe was a renegade Colonel leading a Regiment in Spain who finds himself thrust into the role of Division Commander after a harrowing landing killed off everyone senior to him. According to the AV man the film supposedly depicted what many in the German Airborne considered their baptism by fire. It was a good movie, the scene of the taking of the bridge was done in one long single take that was ten minutes in length and the way it was shot, putting the camera in the middle of the action was considered extremely innovative at the time. The part that was most surprising was how the movie ended. After holding the bridge against extremely long odds the paratroopers withdrew across it and blew it up. Then they marched off into the sunset, singing patriotic songs as one last screw you to the Spanish troops who they had just ceded the field to in order to get a strategic victory.
Added into the second film was a substantial amount of anti-Soviet propaganda, not surprising considering when it was made. There were also elements of romance, it didn’t take much imagination to realize that the woman who came to the bridge with the press pool was based on Maria Acker. The conclusion that Averell reached was that Emil von Holz was a complex and extremely dangerous man.
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