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Quick update - III:XIII will be up soon. For optimistic readers, this could mean some time tonight. For the less so, this could mean early Friday.
 
Chapter III: Part XXIII

Chapter III: The Lion’s Den

Part XXIII


October 14, 1936

Count Wolf-Heinrich von Helldorf opened his eyes to a darkened room. His heart was pounding, and he wasn’t immediately sure why he had awakened. The shrill ring of a telephone on the table next to his bed caught his breath. After several seconds, a second ring. He sat bolt upright, rubbing his eyes. A third ring grated urgently.

He reached for the receiver. “Hello?”

“Herr Gruppenführer, this is Leutnant Milch at City Police Headquarters. There has been a series of explosions in the city center, of unknown origin. You are needed at once.”

von Helldorf held the receiver silently for several seconds. His head throbbed. “Has there been an air raid?”

The police lieutenant on the other end paused. It sounded like he was asking someone in the background a question. “No, Herr Gruppenführer. We just got off the telephone with Major Veranis at Air Defense on the Tiergarten and nothing unusual has been reported.”

“When will my car be here?”


“Uhm, I believe no more than ten or fifteen minutes, Herr Gruppenführer.”

von Helldorf hung up the receiver. Fumbling in the darkness, he managed to turn on the lamp at his bedside. Putting on his eyeglasses, he clambered out of bed and walked to his closet. He began putting on his dark green uniform -- that of Berlin’s chief of police -- but his fingers were moving sluggishly. With a snap, the top button of his tunic flew off and tinkled on the wooden floor. Bellowing curses, von Helldorf savagely tore off the tunic and hurled it across the room in a ball.

Anger simmering, he stalked off to the bathroom, turned the light on and opened a small bottle of pills next to the sink. Swallowing three without water, he replaced the cap and walked back into his bedroom, running a hand through his slightly receding dark hair. He fancied himself in better sorts almost immediately, and picked the balled tunic from the floor in the corner of the room, beating it several times to get the wrinkles out.

Five minutes later, he stood dressed in front of his full-length mirror. He checked his wristwatch as he slipped on his black gloves. Ten minutes after midnight. He realized, looking at the greatcoated officer glowering back at him, that it was his fortieth birthday.

helldorf.jpg

Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf.


One of the few prominent SA officers to maintain close ties with the highest echelons of the Nazi leadership in the wake of the Night of the Long Knives, von Helldorf had been installed the year before as Polizeipräsident of Berlin, largely by way of having aligned with the SS shortly before the anti-SA purge began. He jockeyed fiercely with the Gestapo for influence in the capital, but by cultivating alliances with men such as Frick and Goebbels had cemented himself as one of the most powerful men in the city. Descending the staircase of his luxurious new home just east of Mahldorf, von Helldorf lit an imported cigarette.

He finished it standing in the cold darkness outside his front door, just as the twin beams of his car’s headlights came into view at the far end of the circular driveway. His driver brought the sleek black Mercedes to a stop, and von Helldorf crossed to it in seconds and climbed into the back seat. The driver didn’t say a single word, and von Helldorf was not in a mood to make conversation as they sped westward at 130 kilometers per hour. Twelve minutes later, they screeched to a stop at the City Police Headquarters on the Alexanderplatz.

A police corporal opened the rear door, and Count von Helldorf climbed out with his jaw set. “What’s going on here?”

Two police captains and a gaggle of junior officers had been standing in front of the building, waiting for him to arrive. At least half of them tried to answer him at once, and von Helldorf swatted away the papers being thrust at him, taking a commanding stride through the building’s double doors and down the central corridor, forcing the others to keep up. The inside of the police headquarters was frantic with activity.

“Handels, tell me everything you know.”

The more competent of the two captains he had in tow started reeling off a list of messages. “Telephone call to fire dispatcher at 23.45, reporting explosion at the Westfeldblock apartments... Telephone call to fire dispatcher at 23.46, reporting ‘multiple explosions’ at or near Westfeldblock apartments... Telephone call to police station in Reinickendorf also at 23.46 reporting fireball in the eastern sky... Teleph --”

“Enough!” von Helldorf spat, raising a gloved hand to silence Handels. “Who can tell me what is going on at this moment?”

“Herr Gruppenführer, this way.” Grossmeier, the captain whom von Helldorf esteemed dimmer than Handels, had begun to ascend the broad staircase to the party’s right.

“What is it?”

“I will show you what is happening at this moment.”

“Tell me in words.”

“Herr Gruppenführer, you must see!”

Losing patience, von Helldorf marched up the stairs after him. “What is it? Tell me what’s going on.”

Grossmeier had backpedaled to the landing, and gestured out one of the large windows. “Look!”

The Police Count made the top of the stairs and whirled to follow Grossmeier’s outstretched finger. His heart shuddered in his chest. In the northwestern sky, a monstrous black plume of smoke rose into the heavens. It was bright orange at its base, where it was illuminated by tongues of red flame visible even from five kilometers away on the Alexanderplatz.

“Report just in from the City Fire Dispatcher,” cried a young lieutenant, entering the landing gallery from a nearby office with papers in hand. “The entire Leopoldplatz -- that is Malplaquetstrasse to Antonstrasse three blocks in each direction -- is up in flames. Fire crews report the southern side of the fire successfully surrounded. Battalions still staging from around the city to fight the north side of the fire.”

“Loss of life?”

“No reports yet, Herr Gruppenführer, but we have alerted Charité, Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, and Potsdam Klinik hospitals to stand by for massive casualties.”

“Have you double-checked with RLB Air Defense about hostile aircraft?”

“I do not know.”

“This is Air Defense now,” called an Oberwachtmeister from the adjacent office, poking his head through a doorway. “They say no aircraft activity was observed.”

“Give me the telephone.” von Helldorf strode across the landing gallery and plucked the receiver from the sergeant’s hand. “This is Gruppenführer Graf von Helldorf. Who is this?”

“Luftwaffe Gefreiter Hausmann.”

“Get me Major Veranis.”

“Yes, one moment please.” The line went silent. Thirty seconds passed before a Bavarian accent came on.

“Herr Polizeipräsident, this is Major Veranis.”

“I have nine city blocks up in flames, and you’re telling me that no foreign bombers have been over Berlin airspace?”

“It is impossible. There has not been a single air raid on Berlin in the whole war.”

“I’m not asking you history questions, Major. What planes have been overhead tonight?”

“None. Civil aviation no longer flies at night for that very reason, and no military aircraft have been recorded in the past hour.”

“Is it possible that a flight of bombers was flying too low for you to observe?”

“No it is not. At night we rely on listening, primarily, and no unusual engine noise was reported.”

“How can that be?” von Helldorf heard the wail of emergency sirens passing through the Alexanderplatz. “This is a serious bombing, Major!”

“I’m looking out my window at the plume of smoke right now, Herr Polizeipräsident, and I’m telling you with complete confidence that that was no enemy air raid.”

von Helldorf slammed the receiver back into its cradle. “Grossmeier!”

“Yes?”

“Are there any targets on the Leopoldplatz that might have attracted sabotage of some kind?”

“Not that I know of, Herr Gruppenführer.”

“Leopoldplatz...” said von Helldorf, thinking aloud. “Leopoldplatz... that’s Wedding. A Communist stronghold in years past, but I thought mostly cleaned up by now. There isn’t any anniversary tonight that might suggest Communist terrorism, is there?”

“I don’t know,” Grossmeier said, “but why would they bomb their own neighborhood?”

“True, true.” The scope of the disaster was only beginning to sink in.

von Helldorf returned to the landing gallery, gazing out across the city center. The plume of smoke was unbelievably wide for something so distant. More than half the area was residential -- surely thousands of citizens lived in the structures being consumed by the fire.

“Very well,” said von Helldorf, “Grossmeier is in command until the duty commissar gets here. Contact the government ministries and order them secured until police arrive. Cordon off the entire district of Wedding, and mobilize the Police Reserve to do so. Send police to secure any further principal structures in the city. Contact the Ministry of the Interior and HKK and apprise them of the situation with whatever information we have. I’m going to the fire.”

Just more than an hour after the first reported explosions, a convoy consisting of von Helldorf, three captains, fourteen lieutenants and a hundred city police men arrived at the line set up by the fire-fighting police along the fire’s southern edge.

Stepping out of his staff car, von Helldorf felt the searing heat of the inferno bathe every centimeter of exposed skin. His first breath of hot smoky air nearly brought tears to his eyes.

AFIREA.jpg

The fire was of such intensity as to boil the water from some fire hoses before it even touched the ground.


“Count von Helldorf!” Berlin’s Chief of Fire-fighting Police was approaching through the smoky gloom around them. Major Wagner was a veteran and a true professional. von Helldorf knew that he had been on duty the night of the Reichstag Fire three years before, and wondered what was running through the man's mind tonight.

“Major, what can you tell me about your progress?” von Helldorf had to shout over the deafening roar of the flames.


“The fire is contained along this line along its entire width in both directions, and around much of its western and eastern flanks!”

“Have your men any idea of the cause?”

“It shows strong signs of arson. The Gestapo is of precisely the same opinion.” Wagner gestured to a small crowd of black-clad figures behind him that von Helldorf had assumed were part of the Fire Brigade.

“You called the Gestapo?” The fire-fighting police were subordinate to the city’s regular police and Wagner was not in his place in summoning the Secret State Police on his own.

“No, I thought you sent them!”

von Helldorf eyed the men in question, huddled around two of their cars that were parked amongst the fire engines. He felt sure that they were watching him themselves. “I certainly did not send for them!” von Helldorf’s words were drowned out by the thunderous collapse of one of the blazing apartment blocks.

“You say you didn’t send for them?”

“I did not send for them! What are you doing with the casualties?”

“There have only been a few, and these we sent to Charité hospital!”

“What? Only a few casualties?”

“That’s correct! By the time I got here, the Gestapo had been able to evacuate much of the area!”

“Do not let them interfere any further, Major. Keep your men holding the line here. I will go to the north side of the fire to help organize the stop line.”

BURNNIGHT.jpg

Buildings burn fiercely on the Leopoldplatz


von Helldorf’s journey north was much slower. The roads had become totally choked with police and fire crews that had been summoned from surrounding areas, as well as panicked civilians attempting to flee the conflagration. Shortly after three, his staff car arrived at the fire line along the Amsterdamerstrasse. Here, the flames were mercifully far less intense, and there seemed to be now little more than vast piles of smoking rubble on this side of the Leopoldplatz neighborhood.

“It was arson,” reported a shadowed Gestapo officer as he opened von Helldorf’s door. “And we know who did it.”

Berlin’s police chief emerged from his car to find at least two dozen Gestapo agents lingering near the rubble as firefighters hosed it down.

“Who are you?”

“Chief Inspector Müller. I am also here to inform you that the Gestapo is currently treating this entire area as the site of a sensitive criminal investigation. We cannot allow your Orpo or normal Kripo into the area, but would be happy of your help in cordoning the area off and keeping away gawkers.”

von Helldorf clenched his fists. “That is yet to be determined. As soon as I can get in touch with the Ministry of the Interior, you will surely be ordered to surrender authority over this scene to me personally.”

“We have all the authority we need. This is a sensitive investigation of an international crime. We must be allowed to use whatever methods we deem necessary to deal with the perpetrators.”

“Perpetrators? You have arrested people already?”

“Yes. If I may trust you not to share this with any of your underlings, we have arrested five men before they could escape the scene of the crime. All of them are Danish citizens. All of them are Danish spies. Now I must insist on your help in cordoning off the area to keep out the curious.”

When Count von Helldorf finally succeeded in reaching Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick just after dawn, he received the same order verbatim.
 
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Ohhhh. I think I know where this is going. Sneaky and yet so obvious. Will anyone outside Germany buy it if I am right?
 
All it has to do is create doubt. If enough people doubt, it will slow down the reactions of the free nations of the world. Giving Germany what it most needs, time and space to run free in.
 
Someone told once: if we win the war, no one will question our means then. :D

It seems he hasn't changed his mind...
 
Wow. Heydrich and Himmler might as well have staged a raid on a radio facility near the Danish border. That probably would have been cheaper at least...
 
Well we all knew Denmark would fall next. The Germans can hardly risk the possibility of the Royal Navy going into the Baltic.
 
I don't know, I very much doubt that this incident will give anyone much pause. With all the thin and flimsy justifications Germany has been using, I'm pretty sure every major power is going to assume that this was an inside job, even if they don't have any evidence either way. Not like the Danes are the most agressive people in the world.
 
von Helldorf was played in Valkyrie by Gunther from Black Book. So says IMDB. Great update indeed.
 
trekaddict - Clever... Good old Abe Lincoln said "You can fool some of the people all the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

frigidmagi - We have certainly seen what doubt can do - France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands are under Nazi occupation. And Denmark couldn't take very long to fall.

Kurt_Steiner - True enough!

Enewald - It's never too late for this regime to drum up a casus belli...

Hardraade - Never! That whole Reichstag thing a few years back was all communists. Definitely communists. I swear ;)! And thanks!

dublish - All will become clear in time :p.

darthkommandant - The Royal Navy in the Baltic :eek:! Heaven forfend!

Kordo - You may be right. Of course it was the Danes and not the Germans that actually have a history of invading England... :rofl:

SeleucidRex - Thank you very much!
 
Two bonus pictures: Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf (first from left) with visiting Italian police officials in Berlin, shortly after the declaration of the Pact of Steel. 28 or 29 May, 1936.


Bundesarchiv_Bild_121-0166_Berli-1.jpg



Bundesarchiv_Bild_121-0168_Berli-1.jpg
 
Inspired in part by trekaddict, I have composed a short(ish) summary of the events of Weltkriegschaft so far. Useful for new readers (who will be linked here from the first post), and veteran readers just hoping to refresh themselves, the summary covers Prologue: Part I -- Chapter III: Part XVI. Let me know if you find any glaring omissions or errors!





The Story So Far:

On the night of December 31, 1935, members of an anti-Nazi resistance group known as the Reinickendorf Circle carry out a daring assassination attempt at Adolf Hitler’s private residence in southern Germany. Surviving by mere luck, Hitler becomes convinced that Providence has spared him to lead Germany to great things. Confident and in buoyant spirits, he decides to use the assassination attempt as a pretext for war against Germany’s small and peaceful neighbor Belgium.

While the leader of the Reinickendorf Circle, Albert Lössner, flees for his life through the mountains of Austria and into Switzerland, German Intelligence conspires to make it appear as though he was planning to meet with Belgian spies in the town of Sankt Gallen. While the operation is not completely successful, world opinion is divided. Following a feverish buildup, senior German general Gerd von Rundstedt is given command of the hundreds of thousands of German soldiers about to pour into Belgium.

At a meeting in the Reichschancellery on January 17, Hitler explains his motivation for war with Belgium. If Germany can conquer Belgium, he says, France’s Maginot Line will be flanked. Without the protection of this immense chain of costly fortifications, France will be easy for Germany to bend to its will. One obstacle stands in the way: Fort Eben-Emael. Colonel Kurt Student tasks a brilliant and daring hero of the First World War with disabling Eben-Emael, which is widely considered to be the strongest fortification in the history of the world. Student’s man, Major Bruno Bräuer, plans in exacting detail an assault onto the top of the underground fortress using engineers dropped in by gliders.

While German diplomats stall the Allies in London and Paris, Bräuer and 80 of his elite commandos descend upon Eben-Emael in a surprise attack. The Belgians are caught totally by surprise, and after a marathon two-day battle, the garrison surrenders. With Eben-Emael disabled, German forces pour into Belgium and secure a surrender after a week of fighting.

Hitler delivers a stunning speech to the world the next day, passing himself off as a man of peace, and dropping the gauntlet before the Allies. Germany is willing to disarm itself, he says, if Britain and France will do the same. The challenge is preposterous, but world opinion of Germany becomes more favorable.

With the world’s senates and parliaments divided, and the League of Nations impotent, German Intelligence looks toward future threats. A spy manages to infiltrate the British Secret Service, but German intelligence analysts are unsure whether to trust him. Following the execution of Albert Lössner, the surviving members of the Reinickendorf Circle plan a second assassination attempt, slated for the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Meanwhile, Hitler and his personal architect dream of rebuilding Berlin on a monumental scale once victory has been achieved.

On Heroes’ Remembrance Day, Hitler gives each of his divisions a solid gold eagle to evoke the traditions of Ancient Rome. Privately, debates rage about whether to shift the German military to a defensive posture, based on growing intelligence about an impending French attack. Hitler dismisses these warnings, but on April 6, the French launch what appears to be a surprise attack. As French armies drive deep into southern Germany, the General Staff scrambles to organize a counterattack across the old Franco-Belgian border, which is very lightly fortified. Despite limited successes, though, the French onslaught in the south proves too strong for Germany. Hitler becomes despondent, beginning to comprehend the severity of the situation, and fearing that his dreams of a Thousand Year Reich will come crashing down.

He authorizes secret peace negotiations in Sweden with Britain’s former Foreign Minister, hoping to end the war while he still has room to bargain. The meeting is interrupted as a special telegram arrives for the German diplomat. General Hausser, it says, has captured Paris. Germany rallies with the electrifying news that this middle-aged panzer general found a crack in French lines and drove all through the night to roll into the French capital unopposed. Unfortunately, the elation proves short-lived, as Hausser is ordered to withdraw in the face of French reinforcements in order to save his precious tanks from being surrounded and captured.

As the French high command begs for Britain to send an expeditionary force to the European Continent, the 4th Army presses onward and captures Munich. With German forces reeling once more, the Abwehr -- the principal German Intelligence service -- sees through a French deception. Hausser is ordered south to exploit the newly-discovered French weakness. Although the French fight fiercely and stop Hausser’s advance, the German counterattacks have brought their own advance to an end. With the British government still vacillating about sending ground forces to France, the French government begins to panic.

With the best French troops in a vicious slogging match in southern Germany, Paris eventually falls again. Seeing France’s weakness, Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italy signs the Pact of Steel on May 10 and joins the fight on Germany’s side. The next day, the Soviet Union enters the war against Germany and Italy, and the conflict is declared a Second World War. Faced with war on three fronts, and the prospect of horrors even worse than those of the First World War, the French government decides to withdraw its army to North Africa.

As the Abwehr sifts through captured French papers, they learn that France may not have intended to go to war. A clique of French generals, convinced that Germany was about to attack France, had ordered their troops to high alert. On the night of April 6, an accidental skirmish had erupted into fighting between the tense and heavily armed troops on opposite sides of the border. Each side had believed that the other attacked first, and by the time anyone knew anything different, the war was already spread across hundreds of miles of front. This information is suppressed, however, and throughout the coming months, Germany turns its attention to occupying the rest of France.

Hitler already realizes that Britain is the greater strategic threat, though. On June 9, he presides over a meeting which generates the Scholl Memorandum, which outlines a long-range plan for aggressive war throughout the world, and calls for the invasion of the British Isles as soon as conditions are favorable. As the German military is wracked by the internal bureaucratic reorganization needed to make such an invasion possible, the war’s center of gravity shifts southward to the Mediterranean. There, Italian forces battle indecisively with Allied armies throughout the summer. Devastating news arrives in July that a British task force has shattered the cream of the Italian navy in the waters off Malta. Germany does its best to assist Italy’s war effort and maintain Allied attention in the Mediterranean.

As fall begins, Germany begins in earnest its buildup for Operation Lion’s Den, the great Invasion of Britain...

 
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HKslan, welcome back! I haven't seen you around here since, what? Mid-way through Chapter I :D? Great to have you aboard again, and I'm very glad the Summary was a help to you.

In answer to your question, the reason that that wasn't in that version of the Summary is because we'll be hearing more about that soon. But basically, France is still under direct military occupation. Promises have been made that when it is possible to do so, control of the country will be handed over to the Still Parliament (see III:XVII) under Pierre Laval, but for now that is just essentially talk and hearsay.
 
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HKslan, welcome back! I haven't seen you around here since, what? Mid-way through Chapter I :D? Great to have you aboard again, and I'm very glad the Summary was a help to you.
:rofl: What a memory you've got! It was somewhere around there. I remember following up until the would-be assassin got to some... Swiss village I think it was, then I got busy with life and things only to return to the AAR to find I was hopelessly behind. :eek:o

In answer to your question, the reason that that wasn't in that version of the Summary is because we'll be hearing more about that soon. But basically, France is still under direct military occupation. Promises have been made that when it is possible to do so, control of the country will be handed over to the Still Parliament (see III:XVII) under Pierre Laval, but for now that is just essentially talk and hearsay.
Interesting stuff. I'll try and stay on track this time around. :D
 
Excellent! You might find, as I know I do, that once you're caught up, it's psychologically easier to catch up on skipped reading while waiting for subsequent updates.

Feel free to ask any further questions that may arise!
 
The summary reminds me of something: what about the Russian front?
 
The summary reminds me of something: what about the Russian front?

The butter yellow blob is inbetween ze Germans and Ivans. I do not envy the poles at all.