Weltkriegschaft

Boy, you duck out of the thread for a few hours and all this excitement breaks loose! Thanks for your attempt at keeping the thread from being locked, Jesper . EDIT: And Kurt, too!

It looks like what all y'all need is another update! It will be here in scant hours!

As to specific comments:

diziziz, SeleucidRex, Kurt_Steiner, Striker475 - Stay tuned! More on that fairly soon.

dublish (1) - Solid reasoning as always, but be wary about trying to use "metathinking" to see what would make literary sense. War isn't always sensical

HKslan - The Nazis intend for it to be a short war against Belgium, and so planning for the 1936 Olympiad goes ahead apace.


The Discussion that Broke out Afterward - I'm glad to see that the thread has gotten people thinking and talking, but as Commander-DK said, best to avoid taking that specific discussion much further due to forum rules .

Chapter I: Part X

Chapter I: The Hammerblow

Part X

January 12, 1936

On the third floor of the Hotel Talleyrand in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, Victor Reinert paced the length of the hallway. It had been a trying week. An Abwehr Special Deputy (Section III), he had been personally tasked by Admiral Canaris with the handling of a complex operation known as “Chopin”. When the wily Abwehr chief had briefed him of the operation’s aims he had been dumbstruck for a full minute.

Hitler wanted war, Canaris had said. Despite the promises of neutrality, the season and the Wehrmacht’s unpreparedness, Belgium was to fall, and without interference from France and Britain. To that end, German military action was to be justified to the international community on grounds of Belgian aggression. Reinert and Canaris knew perfectly well that the neutral little country hadn’t the faintest idea of attacking Germany, and Canaris had said as much to the Führer. Instead he proposed a more plausible justification -- Belgiam had been behind the recent assassination attempt at the Berghof.

Upon the Führer’s approval of this deception, Reinert had begun Operation Chopin. First, he had contacted Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath, urging him to seek a backchannel meeting Belgian agents -- upon whom incriminating evidence could be planted.

Next, Reinert had had his staff research possible links to the Berghof attack. When they learned that the weapons and fizzled bomb recovered after the attack were of German origin, Reinert struck upon the notion of staging a direct meeting between someone involved in the Plot and the hapless Belgians.

He had contacted the Sicherheitsdienst office in Berlin, inquiring as to the whereabouts of General Beck, but due to the intense rivalry between the SS Security Service and the Abwehr, could not get anything out of the SD officer but curt statements that Beck was “safe”. Canaris had personally intervened with the Führer, and on the sixth of January, Beck was transferred to Abwehr custody. Reinert had promptly cabled von Neurath’s deputy in Paris, telling him to seek a meeting for four days hence at a hotel in Aachen. Beck was to be framed as traitorously meeting with Belgian agents.

Then, late in the day, word from informants in Austria very likely placed the fugitive leader of the anti-Hitler conspiracy in that country. Though all available manpower was directed to apprehending the man -- apparently a lunatic professor by the name of Albert Lössner -- he dropped out of the Abwehr’s knowledge for most of the seventh, finally being located at a hotel in Sankt Gallen, Switzerland.

Reinert had seen a plum opportunity in this, and wasted no time in gaining Canaris’ approval of a change in Operation Chopin. When Reinert had arrived with several Abwehr agents in Sankt Gallen, a message was waiting for him from von Neurath. One of his deputies had succeeded in securing the a meeting with two Belgian diplomats in Aachen.

Reinert considered that it would it would be far more dramatic for the Belgians to be caught meeting the criminal leader of the conspiracy than with a respected general, and far more convincing for the “conspirators” to be caught by politically neutral Swiss police in Switzerland than by Nazi security forces within Germany. Reinert decided not to arrest Lössner but rather have him remain under surveillance until the iron was hot. He directed his staff to draw up forged papers that could be planted on the Belgians and was informed that more time would be needed.

To buy time, he had ordered the cancellation of the Beck meeting, and wired von Neurath’s deputy, Friedmann, and obtained the names and itineraries of the Belgian representatives. The meeting would be moved to Sankt Gallen and postponed to the twelfth to give the Abwehr time to forge convincing documents.

Before noon on the eighth, a memorandum was on Hitler’s desk in Berlin explaining that an Abwehr agent had personally confirmed the presence of Lössner in Switzerland and, under pretenses of being a Belgian agent himself, induced the fugitive ringleader to remain there of his own volition until the meeting on the twelfth.

Now it was the twelfth. Reinert peered through the blinds of the hallway’s window. Across the street was the Hotel Alexander. The two Belgian envoys, Arcadeldt and Kastner, would arrive any minute. The next part of Operation Chopin would require delicate timing. Reinert had to tip off Swiss authorities to the meeting soon enough that they could arrive before the Belgians realized that Lössner was not one of von Neurath’s deputies and fled -- and late enough that they would not arrive before Reinert’s men could plant their documents on the Belgians. All the carefully-rehearsed plans had been laid carefully.

At the sight of the Belgians’ car pulling up on the street below, Reinert made his move. From a pay telephone, he contacted the Cantonal Police to report witnessing the fugitive assassin Albert Lössner lurking with two “suspicious individuals” at the Hotel Alexander. Then, a second call to the Abwehr agents waiting in their room above the meeting: “Begin the operation.”

Out the window Reinert saw two well-dressed men enter the hotel lobby. Nothing would be visible to him until the operation was nearly complete. It was an agony of waiting.

dublish (1) - Good call, sir!

Ironhewer, dublish (2) - The next installment concerns Lössner's fate!

SeleucidRex, Chase Mii Da - Thanks!


Next update today (well, at least today for me).

Chapter I: Part XI

Chapter I: The Hammerblow

Part XI

January 12, 1936

From a small table in the lobby of the Hotel Alexander, Albert Lössner watched the entrance for any sign of his Belgian allies. Just as his early morning visitor had instructed him he had remained in the hotel, keeping a low profile and idling away the days until the meeting. The clock in the lobby showed several minutes past noon.

The Continentally furnished foyer and lobby were nearly empty. Waiting, Lössner found a growing urge to urinate, and, setting his suit jacket on the back of his chair, made for the restroom. He pondered how best to discreetly identify the Belgian agents once they arrived. Have they seen photographs of me? Will they be armed? With a jolt, Lössner collided with a man at the restroom door. The man apologized profusely, and slipped past him.

Lössner spent several minutes washing his hands, steadying his nerves for the meeting. Will they have news of my family?

When he returned to the lobby, two men were already seated at his table, their large briefcases resting on the table legs. He approached them quickly, holding out his hand. “Monsieur Arcadeldt?”

The stouter of the two stood, his thick moustache quavering as he spoke. “Herr Friedmann! A pleasure.”

Lössner was taken off guard. “Friedmann?”

“Yes, Herr Neurath --” There was a loud bang.

A man in a white suit came bounding down the stairs, shouting wildly at someone out of sight on the landing. A woman’s shrill voice called down to him, hurling invectives. Everyone in the lobby sat with rapt attention -- the commotion was so intrusive that they could not plausibly pretend to ignore it. A man sitting at an adjacent table had unabashedly turned his seat so as to face the unfolding altercation.

The woman came into view. She was unusually tall, and wore a long red dress of fashionable French design. Her moist cheeks glistened. “You cad! I never want to hear from you -- or, or, or, that sniveling little whore that you --”

The man slapped her full across the face. “Don’t you call her that!”

The woman shrieked, and lunged at the man’s face, making as if to gouge him with her nails. He was too quick, and dodged aside, backpedaling quickly into the center of the lobby. The woman twisted backwards and flung her purse at him. He ducked, and the purse flew past him, splitting open at the feet of Arcadeldt’s staring companion. He held up a hand to offer acceptance of an apology that never came, and did his best to restore the purse’s contents.

The man’s tone was suddenly softer. “Come now, sweetheart. Be a good girl and settle down now.” But the woman was not to be placated. She slipped the ring from her finger and flung it at the man. This time he could not duck, and the ring hit him on the face and tinkled to the floor. It was followed in rapid succession by the woman’s earrings, bracelet and necklace.

“What are you throwing those at me for? I love you.”

The woman had balled her fists. “You worm! I hate you!” Seeing his apparent humiliation, she continued, clearly relishing each word, “I hate you! Hate you, hate you, hate you!”

“Darling, please. I didn’t mean to hurt --”

“Don’t lie to me! You’re a dog, that’s what you are!” She was frothing at the mouth.

Lössner started to push himself out of his chair, but felt a kick from under the table. The woman glanced briefly in his direction. “Don’t ever speak to me again. Don’t follow me!” She dashed back up the stairs, sobbing loudly. As her cries faded, the man turned about, and muttering an apology to the onlookers, quickly picked up the jewelry and started up the stairs.

After several seconds of silence, Arcadeldt cleared his throat. “Where were we? Ah, yes -- Herr Friedmann, meet Frederick Kastner.” The men shook hands. “They have been very vague with me, Herr Friedmann. I’ve been given to believe that Germany is willing to grant revolutionary assurances, yes?”

Lössner did not grasp what the Belgian was getting at. He was in the act of leaning across the table to better hear Arcadeldt when his mind registered another bang. He snapped his head to the staircase, but it was empty. Someone was blowing a whistle.

Blue-uniformed policemen were streaming into the lobby from several directions. They were all around Lössner before he could react. A young police corporal forced him against the wall and manacled him. Lössner shot a pleading look at Arcadeldt, but soon he too was being arrested. Kastner was lying on the ground, babbling about diplomatic immunity. The man who had turned his chair to watch the couple fighting sat silently in handcuffs. Several other hotel guests were being questioned, Lössner could see.

Arcadeldt begged the police sergeant to be turned over to the Belgian embassy to resolve any misunderstanding. The sergeant demanded to see the his diplomatic papers. Arcadeldt obligingly opened his briefcase -- only to turn pale and slam it shut. Suspicions aroused, the sergeant reopened the briefcase, revealing large stacks of currency and what appeared to be a great number of telegrams.

The sergeant turned to his men and snapped several brisk orders. At once, the policemen began searching the briefcases and persons of the others in the lobby. The man who had turned his chair sat silently as his pockets were found to contain more than ten thousand Reichsmarks. The young corporal was ordered to check the pockets of Lössner’s jacket. His hands soon emerged, a clip of ammunition in each.

Lössner’s knees went slack. He did not even resist as a detailed hiker’s map of Berchtesgaden was pulled from his pocket. He simply closed his eyes and began to pray.