Chapter One Thousand
9th February 1953
Potsdam
“Birthdays are important milestones” Louis Ferdinand said to Freddy as they walked through the Kronprinzenpalais which sat across the river from the Hohenzollern Palace. Later, they would return for Freddy’s birthday party, but this needed to be done first.
The Crown Prince’s Palace had sat empty for a number of years and there had even been talk of converting it into a museum. Today, plans were being made for it to be refurbished and modernized for when Freddy came of age. From the look of things, they would probably have just enough time for that. However, walking through this immense pile of stone with his father reminded Freddy if the things that he had wanted for as long as he could remember. For years Freddy had dreamed of being a paratrooper, perhaps a sailor or a professional Footballer. These days he realized that he was expected to follow his father and that would make being out seeking adventures difficult. Not that he wasn’t planning on going on plenty of adventures when he had the chance. Instead, Freddy had realized that for him the future would involve going to University. Gräfin Katherine had been to only one who he had told his plans to and she had seemed incredibly relieved when she had heard that. She had then said that everyone had figured that he would run off to join the Fallschirmjäger the first chance he got.
Katherine had discussed with him the various options he had, then Kat had told Freddy about what his father had done in his youth. Spending time with business leaders and industrialists. Dating movie stars in Hollywood. Learning how the world worked. The rub was that Louis Ferdinand had done all of that before he had been heir to the throne and the death of Freddy’s Uncle Wilhelm had changed everything. Freddy had realized that he would need his Abitur at the earliest possible date. Then University for Law, Economics and International Relations plus anything else he could think of. Katherine had said that he should take his time and study what he wanted because no one knew what the future held. Freddy knew that Katherine was referring to Gia, who had wanted to be a Journalist but now just seemed lost these days. Katherine had then pointed out that Freddy wasn’t exactly the greatest of students. For him that was a bit embarrassing, everyone who knew him was aware of that.
“I lived here with your Aunts and Uncles here while your Grandfather was still Crown Prince” Louis said.
“Uncle Wilhelm didn’t use this much?” Freddy asked.
“He wasn’t Crown Prince for long” Louis answered, “He preferred to be an Officer in the Heer and lived in Posen.”
That was an odd bit of family history. Freddy’s Great Grandfather had decided that his name was cursed after the untimely death of Wilhelm the III and the death by misadventure of Crown Prince Wilhelm in Spain. He had made the entire family swear that there would never be another Wilhelm in the family. In the years since, that had been compounded by the publishing of the memoirs of Duchess Cecilie. She had made sure that the whole world knew that Wilhelm the III was a womanizing libertine. Crown Prince Wilhelm on the other hand had put aside privilege and volunteered to fight in Spain. He had died after getting shot on the road to Madrid. An investigation had concluded that it had it had probably not even been aimed at him, Uncle Wilhelm had just been unlucky that day.
“What am I supposed to do with this place?” Freddy asked, knowing that it wasn’t what he wanted.
“Whatever you want” Louis said, “Consider this a larger version of that room you have in the attic.”
Freddy had to laugh at the absurdity of that comparison. “I didn’t think you knew about that” He said.
Gia and Katherine were the only two people he had shown it to.
“There’s not a whole lot you do that I am unaware of” Louis said, “A couple weeks after you set it up Matthias Schmied went to see where you were going and found it.”
“And no one said anything?” Freddy asked.
“There was no point, and everyone thought it was good for you to have.”
Nevada Test Range, North-West of Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Despite the continuous delays the project had ground forward slowly. This time it had been done in the upmost security with the personnel carefully screened. The issue they had run into that they had not foreseen was that they had been getting increasing amounts of pushback from the scientific community. Even when presented with the idea that original tests had been sabotaged, Doctor Robert Oppenheimer had said that perhaps they had been saved from themselves. He had steadfastly refused to work on the project, sighting the dangerous presence of Edward Teller in the prior incarnation. While Oppenheimer himself was considered politically suspect, the hundreds who had followed his lead were not. Then when the British had conducted their test radioactive particles had been found for thousands of kilometers downwind. That had seemed to validate many of their concerns.
However, the realities of the global balance of power had held sway. The German and British Empires were old world monarchies, where hereditary Kings were still a way of life had acquired nuclear weapons first and that was unacceptable. The United States needed to shore up its position as a world power and there was only one way to do that.
On the early morning hours of the 9th of February, the device which fired a uranium slug into the core in the static test mount. As the resulting explosion lit up the night sky and the shockwaves raced through the globe, the world became an ever more dangerous place.