Chapter One Thousand Seventy-Five
20th July 1954
Wunsdorf-Zossen
As soon as he got back to Wunsdorf Kurt had presented what he had found to Generaloberst Raus. The General blew his stack when he realized that the much of the German Panzers, which were less than a decade old, would need either substantial upgrades or replacement. It had not been what the General had wanted to hear. It was expected that the Reichstag would collectively have a tantrum when they learned about this. Fortunately, he had already figured out how to go about doing it. Looking at the technical drawings he saw that the changes to the hull were minimal. Even with the extensive modifications that he had seen in Bohemia the size of the turret ring was identical. All that had really changed was the turret itself was wider to accommodate spaced armor similar to that already used on the Luftpanzer and to make room for the larger gun. Underneath, it was the same elongated hexagon that every Panzer since the Panther I had used.
Kurt’s thoughts were abruptly brought back to the present as Finster started trying to climb his leg. Carefully extracting the kitten’s claws from his pants leg, Kurt grabbed the black ball of fluff. “Suse!” Kurt yelled.
“What?” Suse asked when she walked in before she saw that Kurt had Finster. “You found him” She exclaimed.
“You are responsible for this little monster” Kurt said.
“Yeah, but he got away from me when I…” Suse trailed off when she saw the blue print of the new version of the Lynx.
It was a reminder that far from being interested in things that most girls were, Suse was obsessed with being a Panzer Commander. Gerta had said that she would grow out of it but over the last couple years she had shown no sign of that. Kurt had no idea what would happen if Suse attempted to join the Panzer Corps, but he hoped that having more than a decade between now and then would prove Gerta right.
Berlin
She might have clawed her eyes out if Ilse thought for a second that it would do her any good as she read about what had had happened from the perspective of others with the names carefully removed. Account after account of things that had happened to her and things she was said to have done. It was the later that was the worst aspect and it swiftly became clear why Doctor Glas had been reticent to bring it up with her.
“This doesn’t make you a bad person” Doctor Glas said, “You were in situations that simply should not have been allowed. You were not responsible, those who were supposed to care for you were.”
Ilse was in complete disagreement with that.
“Kat is always worried that she has the potential to become a monster like our father” Ilse said, “I already am one.”
“There is a reason why concepts such as age of reason exists” Glas said, “As I said you were not responsible.”
It was all there, Ilse had behaved savagely towards other children. Doing anything she could to wring out any momentary advantage, according to this the only reason she hadn’t inflicted the sort of injury she had seen on Alex was lack of opportunity. Ilse felt the same way that she did when she was having a panic attack.
“You are hyperventilating again Elisabeth” Doctor Glas said. How could she possibly be so calm? “We’ve talked about how to respond to this.”
They sat there for several long minutes as Ilse was trying to breath slowly through her cupped hands in an effort to regain control.
“Your reaction means that you understand the implications as an adult” Glas said, “But then, you were just a child trying to survive.”
“That doesn’t make it right” Ilse replied.
“It doesn’t, and it is good you understand that” Doctor Glas said, “But one thing that you must understand is that frequently there is a very fine line between those who are abused and abusers themselves.”
That was horrible thing for Ilse to learn about herself.
Ankara, Turkey
It had become the new reality of modern warfare, sitting in a basement listening to bombs falling on the city. What was galling for Abdullah Uzun was that he was in the basement of the Ministry of War. He never could have imagined this when he had had been a boy and had watched as they had defeated the British at Gallipoli. Even in that victory there were warning signs that they should have paid heed to. Starting the battle with every advantage they had fought the British to a stand-still and then their opponents had withdrawn in good order with a deception campaign that shouldn’t have worked. In the months that followed the British and French had pushed them back everywhere.
When the Germans had managed eke out a narrow victory they had wrongly assumed that the Allies would concede a victory to them. Instead, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire had accelerated as the British withdrew to Palestine and Egypt. Sensing weakness, groups within the Ottoman Empire that had centuries worth of grievances had revolted at once. When the smoke cleared, the Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and anyone else who thought they had a claim had grabbed everything they could as the Turkish Army had been in rapid retreat. Turkey had been reduced to a mere shadow of what had once been one of the greatest Empires in the world.
Anything but peace had followed. Turkey was beset on all sides by enemies and Uzun had eventually rose to the rank of Colonel. Now once again Turkey had taken a roll of the dice and lost. The stalemate that had developed with the Greeks was seen as leading to a final Greek victory in the long term. As the fortunes of Turkey had declined, Greece had been rapidly industrializing. It had been realized that if Turkey did not find a way to kick the Greeks off Anatolia soon then they would remain hopelessly overmatched in the future.
The sudden offer of military equipment a couple years before had seemed like a gift from heaven. Then the opportunity to force the Greeks to fight a two-front war had presented itself and it had seemed like everything was going their way.
Until it wasn’t.
Uzun felt the concussion of another bomb exploding on the street level as a reminder of that. The Albanians had gotten a message through to Ankara, according to them Tirana had been flooded with refugees and was coming under increasing air attack. For them this was turning into an even greater disaster than it was for Turkey.
