Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

So grandmother Marcella has died. Emil's mother

Aunt Marcella is still living - whatever her age is...

Zella is young also named Marcella.

Clearly this name is a lucky for long life. Zella should be fine..
 
It is kind of fascinating what the life of the "Real" Marcella Holz would have faced IOTL:
Her underaged son, Emil would have most likely died at Sedan, and she would have been extremely unlikely to have his body returned for burial.
Her family would have first suffered through the "Turnip Winter" of 1918-1919, then the deliberately induced inflation of the Weimar Republic.
Jena, being the historical center of Student Radicalism in Germany for centuries, would have seen her son Peter either becoming a member of the KPD or the Nazi Party.
If Peter joined the KPD, he would have been imprisoned by the SS and later died in the Concentration Camps, or if he escaped to the Soviet Union only to be purged by Stalin after being targeted by Walter Ulbricht.
If Peter escaped to another country, he still would have faced getting purged by Stalin and Ulbricht for being a "True Believer".
If Peter would have become a Naz, then he would have faced dying in a street battle, "The Night of Long Knives'", somewhere on the Eastern Front, or hanged as a war criminal.
Macella and family would have been subjected first to Allied Bombing of Jena in WW II, then Soviet occupation afterwards, so the likelihood of her surviving this long is extremely unlikely.
 
Just read the entire story in like 4 days or so . No idea why i didnt read this before when i saw the original topic when it was published and later aswell.

First comments about the story..

I dont like princess kristina at all , love her husband ben tough.

Didnt love the depressed kat angle but love her character otherwise. Her husband again is awesome.
Dont love her oldest daughter , altough if she is a analyst and stuff like that she is doing lately it wouldnt be a horrible idea to do. The son could actually be fleshed out more. But i do like marie and think that the comments being made that she is basicly kat without the horrible childhood is actually interesting.

Love the former emperor and his current wife . Didnt like the previous empress and really didnt like the turn she took with kiki.
Freddy seems like a decent emperor and a decent human and i hope he can curtail the current goverment when they have truly horrible ideas.
Also love the king of bohemia and his trying to be a knight and all it entails and trying to sponsor a art scene.

Kinda dissappointed that we didnt see more adventures with holz after he retired but guess he is kinda busy with his bmw work mainly i guess wich isnt a bad fate .

Also , i was really pissed about the fate of the grand admiral , honestly i would have prefered he shot himself considering who he was .

I really loved horst and how high he rose eventually . And the same with jost and he suddenly becoming a actor , acting as himself mainly or other soldiers.

And the panzer commander who became a marshal and led ww2 was by far the most awesome charachter of the story and it is not even close.
 
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Part 139, Chapter 2392
Chapter Two Thousand Three Hundred Ninety-Two



26th July 1975

Hohenzollern Castle

High atop the North watch tower the Prussian flag flew with the blue banner of Princess Kristina below it. The Princess apparently preferred to live in the Markgraf Tower, leaving the Master’s Chambers empty when she apparently wasn’t renting it out to whatever VIP she was presently trying to impress. It was said that when the Princess’ consort, Graf von Hirsch came to the castle in a few days his red and white banner would join it. It was a leftover thing from centuries past to let everyone for kilometers around know that the Lady was home. Sepp just looked at it with wry amusement. The sort of things that people did before television if he had to guess.

The castle itself took a bit of getting used to. The Princess and her two children were often seen around the castle with an Irish woman and an old dog that followed them everywhere. Perhaps it was predictable that Dieter would have an easier time making friends among the children here for the summer than Sepp was. They had tended to congregate in the room that Sepp and Dieter shared out of long habit. Strangely, they knew only what Dieter told them so many of these children seemed to think that Sepp was a hero of some sort. He didn’t understand why.

There were also moments when Sepp was certain that the adults in the castle all had ulterior motives when they did things. Sure, there were moments like when they had been introduced to the Stone Masons who helped maintain the castle itself that were interesting. There were also tasks like weeding the kitchen garden and feeding the goats or chickens who lived on the grounds that left Sepp wondering what was really going on here. The clothes, which were supposedly period authentic, that they were expected to wear had the effect of making everyone the same. Despite all the very real Medieval trappings around the castle, Sepp was aware of the modern heating, plumbing, not to mention the service entrance with the loading dock. Those things were decidedly not an authentic part of the experience and a reminder that the castle had been built and rebuilt at least three times and there had been countless efforts at refurbishment of the interiors. The most recent rebuild had only been about a century earlier.

On the first Saturday Sepp found himself unexpectedly meeting with someone from his own neighborhood, who Dieter had told him all about on many occasions. This happened with Sepp as part of the handful of fifteen and sixteen-year-olds taken aside while the children were taken to the movie theater in Hechingen. First they had been given a lecture, by Princess Kristina herself, beyond what they already knew. That they were in positions of responsibility and that they needed to set an example. She then outlined what they would be doing over the next few weeks and the detailed schedule. Then she introduced Doctor Thomas Ott, a friend and colleague of hers. He promised to keep his introduction brief and he stuck to that.

“Of course, Doctor von Preussen feels that the older boys might be more comfortable talking to me” Doctor Ott said to them, “As an Emergency Surgeon for the last thirty years, I can assure you that nothing you could possibly think to say or ask would surprise me in the least.”

That brought a round of nervous laughter. Of course, Sepp had one important question, so he raised his hand.

“Yes, Josef” Kristina asked.

“What exactly are you getting out of this?” Sepp asked, “No one does something for nothing.”

“I’m getting a holiday in a scenic part of the country” Ott replied, “I also understand the importance of what we are doing here.”

“Taking the stupid, poor kids out of the city for a few weeks to stay out of trouble is important?” Sepp asked, “By having them do gardening and get kicked by goat?”

There was a bit of snickering around the room. All Sepp had done was say what everyone here was thinking.

“Your sarcasm is noted Josef and you could not be more wrong” Kristina replied, “If you were stupid you wouldn’t have been invited and as for being poor, the students come from a variety of backgrounds.”

“There is also the aspect of children from the city learning that milk and produce do not just come from the market” Ott said, “That is a divide that Doctor von Preussen and her brother are working to address.”

Sepp didn’t quite understand what it was that Ott was getting at. Sepp saw the Princess smile at that though. According to Dieter, who had gotten to know her at the University Hospital in Tempelhof, she preferred to be addressed as a Doctor as opposed to the other titles she had.

“There is the aspect of the northern and southern political divide to consider, one that we are seeking to bridge” Kristina said, “That is the real reason you are here, those who might be leaders in a generation.”

“I think that you should look elsewhere then” Sepp replied. He knew that he wasn’t a leader of any kind, it was all he could do to get through the next school term and to make sure that he and Dieter kept a roof over their head. All of that despite his worthless father’s efforts to keep them forever on the edge of destitution.

“Regardless of what you may think Josef, that is the truth” Kristina said, “I am also responsible for your health and safety while you are here. I intend to make the most of that with the help of Doctor Ott. Does anyone else have any questions?”

Sepp listened as Kristina patiently answered the questions and resumed explaining the schedule for the activities that were going to be happening over the next several weeks. It was starting to dawn on him that this was going to be an extremely long holiday.
 
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“I think that you should look elsewhere then” Sepp replied. He knew that he wasn’t a leader of any kind, it was all he could do to get through the next school term and to make sure that he and Dieter kept a roof over their head. All of that despite his worthless father’s efforts to keep them forever on the edge of destitution.
Sepp, my boy, I hate to break it to you, but you are a named recurring character in this story.

You will be dragged into the Chancellorship/Military High Command/Secretary Generalship of the League of Nations (delete as applicable) the hard way, and you'll be grateful for it!
 
I could see Ben being a famous Ace pilot and Astronaut (damn spellchecker not letting me use German term) breaking out the telescope at night when he is there, and Kiki's brother Michael, "The Mad King of Bohemia" showing up to give a demonstration on Medieval weapons and combat tactics.
The main object of taking some of these young people to the castle is to me, is that they have been identified as having the potential to do much better in their lives, but for many of them, they don't know it themselves and have no goals or direction beyond making it to the next day.
For someone like Sepp who has a tremendous amount of self discipline and work ethic but no set goals in the direction of his life, the military is going to be his best ticket out of his current life situation.
 
How the North-South divide played ITTL should be pretty interesting. OTL Bavaria (and the South in general) bridged a lot of the distance it had lagged behind after WW2, being part of the West and receiving a lot of immigrants, as well as transitioning from the most agrarian part of the country to one of the most industrialized.

ITTL, the Rhineland has never been flattened in WW2, there’s Bohemia which is easily the second industrial hub in Germany, and there’s also Silesia to boot.
 
For someone like Sepp who has a tremendous amount of self discipline and work ethic but no set goals in the direction of his life, the military is going to be his best ticket out of his current life situation.
The civil service is another option. At this stage OTL, it doesn’t require college degrees, he’d just need to succeed in the entrance exams. And once he does that, job for life…
 
It is kind of fascinating what the life of the "Real" Marcella Holz would have faced IOTL.
Laying out OTL vs TTL would be a remarkably depressing read.

Some characters who the readers love might just reveal themselves to be potentially the worst sort of monsters. Others would have vanished into the gaping maw of what came to called the Holocaust in OTL. Still more would have found themselves on the various battlefronts where all manner of death potentially awaited. Then moving into the later decades of the 20th Century there is East Germany, Iron Curtain, and potential nuclear destruction at any second with a generation living in the shadow of that.

It is exactly like Jack Kennedy said when Kat told him that she thought that Marie was a lot like who she might have been if things had been different. "God both gives and takes." And we all know what happened to him in OTL.
 
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My point was that IOTL there were plenty of ways for Oma Holz to have not lived to the mid-1970s. And no GDR-apologist talk please - they were a pretty vile bunch.
Hey, I do realize your point if view.

My parents grew up in the GDR.

I'm sorry if I have not fully understood your argument.

And do not want to be apologetic.. I know what the NVA did, my grandfather was part of it. I know what the Stasi did ... Some of my parents friends used to work for them
But... There's always a but... Please don't worsen the GDR unnecessarily...
 
Hey, I do realize your point if view.

My parents grew up in the GDR.

I'm sorry if I have not fully understood your argument.

And do not want to be apologetic.. I know what the NVA did, my grandfather was part of it. I know what the Stasi did ... Some of my parents friends used to work for them
But... There's always a but... Please don't worsen the GDR unnecessarily...
Same here!

I may have been born too late to have seen much (of the bad things) of the GDR, but not everthing was bad.
The same way in which not everything in West-Germany has been good.
 

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Also , i was really pissed about the fate of the grand admiral , honestly i would have prefered he shot himself considering who he was .
Ok, why?.....
I would say it's because Alzheimer's is a horrible way to go. Less bad for you, more bad for your family because you're dead long before your body goes and your family is the one that watches is happen. One of my grandfather's went that way, he even forgot my mom by the end. I felt bad for Schmidt.
 
Actually I think the Grand Admiral was using this to an advantage because he understood that the people who were not around him daily, including parts of the German Government, would not know if he was faking it was actually suffering from it. He was one to "Keep them Guessing".
 
Same here!

I may have been born too late to have seen much (of the bad things) of the GDR, but not everthing was bad.
The same way in which not everything in West-Germany has been good.
Hey, I do realize your point if view.

My parents grew up in the GDR.

I'm sorry if I have not fully understood your argument.

And do not want to be apologetic.. I know what the NVA did, my grandfather was part of it. I know what the Stasi did ... Some of my parents friends used to work for them
But... There's always a but... Please don't worsen the GDR unnecessarily...
I grew up in Australia's largest city (Sydney) in the 1970s & 1980s, with a lot of refugees from Communism in my life. The man who delivered the bread escaped from Hungary post-1956, my high-school Geography teacher fled the GDR after the 1953 uprising - pretty strong messaging on Communism. Kids I went to school with were newly arrived refugees from Poland post-martial law trying to function in a non-communist society (lots of paranoia & distance). Not to mention all the traumatised kids I went to school with that had fled Vietnam with their parents as 'boat people' after 1975. This stuff colours one's view of the Communist bloc somewhat.
 
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My experience of Eastern Germany came about 5 years after reunification as roadie for a British punk band touring Germany.
At that point you could see more or less where the border was by the line of roadworks. The Autobahns for example, went from well maintained asphalt in the west to, (as I remember it), concrete with some VERY nasty potholes on the side. The band only played one show deep in the east in Bautzen, and I remember everything being very grey, the houses, the weather, the food. It was eye opening for sure. I met some great people.
However, this was nearly 30 years ago so my memory might not be 100% on the matter though.
 
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