Siegerkranz - Germany's Place in the Sun

Like I said, I know, isn't it great?

We are talking about the same Stalin who viewed his own returning prisoners of war as potential enemies, the same Stalin who on the eve of his death launched a purge of the medical profession on the flimsiest grounds imaginable, the same Stalin who gutted his own military leadership on the grounds of political reliability, the same Stalin who destroyed the Communist International in the '30s by the same means... in other words, why in the world do you credit Stalin with the ability to see past his own paranoia and start fomenting unrest? The only reason he accepted Lend-Lease (which was then disguised as Soviet home production) was because he didn't have a choice. Given a choice, Stalin always chose the insular, paranoid course of action. It'd require an ability to see beyond his own fantasies to get Stalin to march in as a savior, and I just can't see him doing that. Besides, with the noises that are soon to be coming out of Berlin, I expect Stalin would be intensely focused on the Polish border.

Part of the problem, I think, is the way HoI handles "cores." It looks like this will be addressed in Darkest Hour - for instance, the Ottoman claim to the Caucasus emphatically isn't a core claim the way that Alsace-Lorraine is for both Germany and France during the period, but it could be considered a legitimate territorial claim on the basis of previous occupation.

85. "God Be Praised, It's Raining Batons!"

Berliner Stadtschloss
Berlin, German Empire
3 November 1942

All Berlin lined Unter den Linden.


The North Sea front which had threatened King George's return to ruined London had spared Berlin, instead inundating the Rhine Valley. Berlin was left with an impossibly blue, clear sky, cloudless as far as the eye could see, with the temperature below freezing, but not so far below that it would have stopped the celebration, or even slowed it.

On the west side of the Brandenburg Gate, many of the Landsers were insensate to the cold, indeed, insensate to anything but the menacing, hung-over glares of their Feldwebel. Those that were not still too drunk from the barracks parties celebrating war's end to feel the cold were surreptitiously swilling coffee from their canteens, coffee as often as not reinforced with something stronger. At a quarter until nine, the lead units dressed and covered at close interval and stepped off behind the Garde du Corps band.

They wound their way through the Gate, then down Unter den Linden. Marshal Bock had wanted to gather every upright and mobile veteran of the Western Front for this parade, but was dissuaded by Minister Speer on the grounds of practicality. Speer, responsible for the ceremony coming off faultlessly, had pointed out that the Berlin crowd would not endure a parade lasting from one morning to the next, which, at sixteen abreast and at quick-time, would be the duration of the passage of an army of that size, that the avenue would need a complete resurfacing after the passage of so many heavy vehicles, and that the defense of the Reich did require that some of them at least man the Alsatian frontier. The Luftwaffe fared somewhat better. The planes roaring overhead in layers, sometimes at absurdly low altitudes, were essentially the entire Luftwaffe in relays, operating from Schönefeld, Tegel, Tempelhof, and even the old military strip at Johannisthal. The Kaiserliche Marine was forced to content themselves with the appearance of the marine detachments from ship crews, and, at Canaris's insistence, the entirety of the fleet air arm while the remaining crews got gloriously, senselessly drunk at their home ports. Ehrhardt successfully meddled in Speer's dispositions ahead of time so that the marines, for the first time, marched as a division, the first fully-formed marine division in German history.

The men receiving the parade's salute at the Stadtschloss were an impressively mixed bag: the royal family, of course, including the wife and daughters of dead Prince Wilhelm, whom the Kaiser kept close to him at all times with a protective instinct that Princess Dorothea could not help but wish had been present before the marriage, the existing marshals and grand admirals, a constellation of officers slightly junior to them, and a bewildering number of relatively junior officers, the juniormost and youngest officer being Oberst Werner Mölders, the "Ace of Aces," who had shot down his hundredth enemy aircraft over Aberdeen and had a total of 103 kills from Spain to Britain. He was not the youngest or juniormost soldier present, though: that honor went to Unteroffizier-Anwärter Balthasar Woll of the 3. Garde-Panzerdivision, looking very nervous and out-of-place in the small enlisted section of the reviewing party.

Of the Volkmann family, Ernst Volkmann was not present; he spent virtually all of his time now at the works growing outside Bad Schlema, and he suspected strongly that the war's end would have negative consequences for his funding, so while the money and manpower were available, he worked feverishly to complete the centrifuge required for separating out uranium isotopes. He was quite certain that work would proceed, if he could only demonstrate some results before funding ran out.

Annelise, too, was absent: she had made her decision by marrying the Frenchman, and while none in her family, not even Wilhelm, would begrudge her that, it made it very nearly impossible for her to return to her family without at least some awkwardness. Johann, for instance, found himself compelled to discuss the breakout battles in Picardy with Lassan, comparing notes on tank warfare. He had tried it once, on pass during the lead-up to Britain, and had concluded that the French were deeply bitter about losing this war. Thus, to spare her husband, Annelise de Lassan would likely never return to Berlin.

She was missed, but the family had already grown so much that the Charlottenburg house was too small and some of them had to stay at Wannsee when the entire family gathered. It seemed that Rita and Wilhelm were expecting another child almost as soon as he returned from any lengthy deployment, and Peter and Hanna's first, a boy named after his father, had been born several weeks premature, though he was now as healthy as could be hoped, if on the small side. Only Johann had no children, though he remained in serious correspondence with Ilse Klein, now at Bad Schlema working on the Project there, whatever it might be.


The three younger Volkmann males were all in the parade, in their appropriate places. Peter had flagrantly abused his rank as captain of the Hindenburg to steal a Stuka from the training squadron at Rügen, and the quickly-painted aircraft flew as part of the Graf Zeppelin complement. Rüdel had grumbled about it, but had acceded eventually. Peter felt a mixture of pride and melancholy at the parade - pride, because of his contributions, and because the arcane "points" system used by the fleet to determine who was eligible for the Pour le Merite had worked in his favor, and melancholy because, while his career was made by that award, it was also stalled. Eight years in service made him one of the juniormost full captains on the list, and his command of the Hindenburg was the result of Canaris's direct influence, which worked against him. He followed the prescribed route, dipping toward the Stadtschloss and waggling his wings in salute before rolling out southward, away from the ground parade route.

Johann, sufficiently recovered from his wounds to ride in a halftrack on a paved surface, was surprised to hear the younger Kleist's exclamation in his headset. "There's the old man, no wonder he left Paris a few days early!" They were approaching the reviewing stand, in the unusual circumstance of saluting eyes-left dictated by the parade route, and he scanned the reviewing party, finally identifying the upright, spartan figure of the elder Ewald von Kleist. He saluted the stand, eyes darting to the younger Kleist, whose face was a mask of Prussian rigidity, but who was actively, visibly suppressing an ear-to-ear grin. The two generals Mackensen gravely nodded towards the Totenkopf units as they passed, but that was all the special acknowledgement that they received. He was glad to get the ridiculous Totenkopf shako off as soon as they were out of sight of the Mackensens, replacing it with a black tanker's beret.

Peter, like Wilhelm, was out of place: rather than with Hippel's regiment, he marched with the Fallschirmtruppen. They marched in their rarely-used dress uniforms, cut in the Luftwaffe pattern, but in dark green, with matching berets and their characteristic side-lace boots. They had gone far out of their way to draw attention to themselves in this uniform, and Student had made absolutely clear to them that every single one of them was a walking recruiting poster. "You can buy your way into the Garde," he had declared to the assembled parachute officers last night, red-faced and brandy-scented at what had once been Alois Hitler's beer hall, "but you have to want to leave a Millipede in flight." Thus, when they approached the reviewing stand, Meindl, standing in for Student, turned his head back over his right shoulder and roared out, saber high, "Double-time, MARCH!" They were kept to a slow jog by the units in front of them, but where everyone else walked in knee-jarring goose-steps or rode past the Kaiser, the parachutists ran. Student, head still swathed in a bandage, could not help but smile at his boys as they came by. Bock glowered in disapproval at the break in discipline, but Bock mattered little in the Luftwaffe.

After three hours of watching soldiers march, roll, and run by, the last tail units of the quarter-million parading soldiers finally departed, and the Kaiser's real work began. He broke all precedent, handing out more batons after a year of war than his father had in four.

For the army, there were first the old Prussian families: Küchler, Weichs, Witzleben, all of whom had turned in a creditable appearance in the West. Next came the men who had earned their batons by pure military merit, without any family interest: Busch, with his blue-enamel cross earned in the Great War and the Oak Leaves for his African campaign, and Hausser. Then came the so-called Panzermarschälle: Guderian, Kleist, a taciturn old campaigner named Model, an Austrian named Rendulic, and the only German not wearing General Staff stripes on the Marshals' List, Erwin Rommel. In addition to the Paris Marshals - Brauchitsch, Leeb, Rundstedt - the first "named" marshal - Generalfeldmarschall Baron von Kluge und Baghdad - and the two pre-war marshals - Bock and Blomberg - there were a total of ten new field marshals in the German army.

If Bock had disapproved of what he felt was the dilution of the honor of the marshal's baton, he was absolutely scandalized by the Luftwaffe promotions. Generalleutnant Kurt Student was jumped a whole three ranks by imperial fiat. Bock had argued long and hard against Student's promotion, but Wilhelm had brushed it aside. He had seen Student's men in the Invalidenhof, in field hospitals in Poland, had awarded them disproportionately after Reims - he had even heard men, when they thought His Imperial and Royal Highness was not listening, refer to the paratrooper general as "the battering ram." This epithet - "der Sturmbock" - was especially offensive to Bock, who felt that if anyone's nickname was to include "Bock," it should be his. This had produced a laugh from Wilhelm: "Don't be ridiculous, Fedi! 'Sturmbock Bock?' It just sounds silly! Now, 'Sturmbock Student?' Fine ring to it!"

Student was not the only Luftwaffe officer so honored, though he was the only one who jumped so far in rank. Ulrich Grauert, as Air Minister, had already been promoted over the heads of such men as Milch; he was now given a baton so that he remained superior to the other generals. The Austrian Löhr, Milch, Richthofen, Sperrle, and Udet were all promoted to field marshal. So, too, was Albert Kesselring, who summarized the day's ceremonies with a quip that no other general would likely have issued with Wilhelm coming down the line: "God be praised, it's raining batons!"

The Kaiserliche Marine was, of all the services, the least rewarded, perhaps disproportionately to the monumental task of destroying or dislocating the British Home Fleet and the Free French fleet. Dönitz was promoted to Grossadmiral, more in recognition of the vastly expanded submarine force than in recognition of the role they had played at the Hebrides. Marschall and Saalwächter, too, received batons, as did the Crown Prince, though he looked distinctly out of place. Many more men were promoted to the slightly-junior position of Generaladmiral, including Canaris and the western U-boat commander, Fricke, who had both shadowed the French fleet and avoided starting a war with the Americans as they built up in Ireland.


Not all of the promotions were in the High Command: Mölders, widely regarded as one of the most thorough and technically competent pilots in the Jagdflieger, was promoted to Generalmajor over most of his contemporaries' heads and made Inspector of Fighter Forces. Later, when he heard about the promotion, Adolf Galland had struck a typically melodramatic pose, with the ends of his moustache drooping, and moaned, "Well, there goes any chance of promotion in this lifetime for the rest of us!" Given that Galland made this pronouncement at a celebration of Mölders's promotion, Galland's assignment to a Jagdflotte in the Baltic that he could mold in his own image, and the transfer of Theo Osterkamp to be head of the naval air training command, it was laughed off by all of the participants.

Poor, out-of-place Bobbi Woll was among the last of the day's honorees. For his exceptional gunnery in the breakout in southern England, he received the Medal of the Order of the Red Eagle, and a pat on the shoulder from the Kaiser, who nodded and told him, "Men like you are why Germany has come back, Woll. We expect great things from you," with that easy, confidential grin that had made better men than Balthasar Woll think that Wilhelm really did care about them, that for a moment at least, they shared a secret that no one else knew. Woll was mistaken, though: in addition to what the Kaiser knew, the secret was shared with a great number of engineers and technicians, including Dr. Ferdinand Porsche.

Enewald said:

well, Unter den Linden was made to be a parade-street.
Or wide enough that the army could shoot rioters in formations.

Click to expand...

Yes, but even so, I did some quick math and realized that even sixteen abreast but with normal front-to-back spacing, at a normal marching pace, the number of troops in the two hundred-ish divisions in the Reichsheer would have taken about 22 hours to march by. That seems a trifle excessive.

Kurt_Steiner said:

Woll? Where is Wittmann?

Click to expand...

Nuremberg, at the Zündapp plant, where Porsche has free rein.

The Tiger's a response to tanks like the Matilda and the Char B1, which were the only things that could even remotely slow the Germans down. It is, however, outdated by the time it is fielded in significant numbers, for reasons with which I may deal in the next update.

Panther - Yes, it will be a result of the same project that makes the Tiger outdated (not that the Tiger isn't fundamentally outdated on deployment, since it's essentially a heavily-armored, treaded box with an 88mm gun on top).

Think of Student's promotion as earned the Roman way. In addition to battlefield recognition, though, it's meant to signal the expansion of the airborne forces. If this was a Hitler timeline, the German military would now consist of nothing but aircraft carriers, armored divisions, and airborne divisions. Fortunately, while Papen has his enthusiasms, they aren't quite on scale with the Bohemian corporal's.

Rommel needs his promotion for his next assignment. Like Guderian, he's an officer whose existence offends the conventional thinkers in the army, and therefore he's essentially promoted and exiled. Rendulic's promotion is, from an in-world perspective, because he's an Austrian, and that's a fairly strong political bloc still. Out-of-game, he just hit the skill cutoff where I start promotions.

86. The Retooling, Part I

Office of the Minister of Economics
Reichskanzlei
Berlin, German Empire
23 December 1942

Albert Speer was one of the least-appreciated of the Kaiser's ministers. There were a number of reasons for this.


First, at thirty-seven, he was already balding. He tried to hide this with a comb-over, but to no avail. The Kaiser was blessed with a rich, full head of hair, and never missed an opportunity to tease Speer. Wilhelm, though, was a genuinely kind man, albeit shallow and selfish, and his teasing lacked malice. That could not be said for Papen, with his magnificent silver mane, deliberately cultivated to impress. Papen, ever looking to please his friend the Kaiser, would needle Speer mercilessly about it, beginning practically every meeting where Speer was present by smoothing his hair back.

Then there was the manner by which he had come into office. Gustav Krupp von Bohlen had been universally respected, but his age had finally caught up with him, and his son Alfried, almost as well-respected, had refused to take the ministry in favor of concentration on the Krupp empire. Alfried had been the Kaiser's first choice, and Speer had happened to be present when Alfried had politely refused. Since Speer was Kaiserin Cecilie's favorite architect, and had worked on a number of large government projects including the Charlottenburg renovation, the new Chancellory, and the rebuilt Reichstag, Wilhelm had more or less offered it to him on a whim, rather typical of the Kaiser's cavalier prewar attitude. The other ministers, hand-picked by Papen or Bock in most cases, thus viewed him with suspicion.


In addition to this, he was neither a Great War veteran nor a "von." Papen's cabinet was dominated by the old nobility, with even ministries like Agriculture going to men like Magnus Freiherr von Braun. To be a commoner in Papen's cabinet, one had to be a Krupp or a Hugenberg, not a mere architect with grandiose dreams. As for wartime heroics? Speer had been just nine years old at the outbreak of war, and barely entering puberty at its end. He was not even a university man, no Oxford don, not even a Heidelberger - no, he was a graduate of a technical institute! Technicians, it was well known, were unsuited to ministerial duties, they were simply too limited in breadth.

All of this aside, Speer was a dogged, relentless minister who took his duties all the more seriously because of his perceived unsuitability. He knew quite well that Papen would gladly replace him with one of the industrial nobles, and therefore did everything he could to keep himself clear of that precipice so that he could build his great works. The planned war memorial, for instance, and the statue of Prinz Wilhelm as Siegfried unveiled at the Bayreuth Festival, were among Speer's personal projects. He got little sleep and less rest, and even he was starting to believe he had overshot the period where coffee had any effect.

Thus, two days before Christmas, his office light was on well after the rest of the Chancellory had gone home. He still had a great deal of work to clear away before the New Year, and according to his calendar, one very late appointment, some general from Hindenburg's staff. He leaned back, stretching and yawning, eyes glancing longingly at the clock, when the knock came at his door. The secretary had long since gone home, so he merely yawned out, "Enter."

In came a dapper little Generalmajor with a perpetual sardonic half-smile and a face seemingly made for world-weary cynicism. Working for Oskar von Hindenburg, Speer reflected, probably exaggerated all of those traits. "What can I do for you, General...?" Speer began, noting the general's scalp was fully covered, if close-cut, with considerable envy.


"Oster. Hans Oster, Minister. Thank you for seeing me at this late hour. May I sit?" Speer nodded affably and, with further envy, noted that even by his desk light, Oster's face was free of stubble. He tried to remember whether he had even had time to shave this morning and failed. "Certainly, by all means. Coffee?" Oster nodded gratefully as Speer moved to the pot and poured a cup. It was old, but still hot, and Oster looked over. "And if you have anything stronger, well, it's damned cold out there, I'd appreciate it!" Speer nodded and sat again. "Schnapps or brandy?" he asked, pulling open a desk drawer and producing two bottles. "Schnapps," Oster replied. Once they were settled, Speer looked across the desk at his guest and asked, "Now, what can I do for you, General?"

Now it was Oster's turn to look vaguely discomfited. "Minister, I trust I can rely on your discretion? These files were not actually supposed to leave the Bendlerblock." Speer blinked and nodded. "Of course, of course! But why are you bringing them to me, if I may ask? Why not to General von Hindenburg?" Oster bristled at the suggestion that he was departing his chain of command, before visibly relaxing. This was, after all, precisely what he was doing. "I have tried," he admitted. "But when you talk to the Young Walrus about Russia, you get one of two things, either a rabid rant about communism, or pooh-pooh-blah-blah-blah Tannenberg, rumble-rumble-mutter Masurian Lakes." Oster shrugged. "He's completely insensate to the possibility that the Soviets might be better than us at something."

Speer laughed. "He's not the only one. I could tell you about the Paris Exhibition of 1938..." He stopped when he saw Oster's grave expression, then waved for Oster to continue. "So what is so important?"

"Minister, I need you to call a conference. Henschel, that man Porsche, Krupp, whoever is the man over at WaPrüf 6 responsible for new equipment."

"And why?"


In reply, Oster laid his folder open, showing a series of photographs. To Speer's untrained eye, they were all equally impressive; to his way of thinking, that meant they were all equally worthless, since he could not choose between any of them. His bafflement must have showed, because Oster launched into an explanation.

"I am no tanker either, Minister, so I will tell you what my experts have told me. This one, this is the Russian light tank of 1937. Our troops encountered and even captured several in Spain. These others are a series of prototypes. We have been very fortunate that many of our soldiers maintained contact with many of theirs, and that many of theirs grew nervous during the... unpleasantness of the 1930s. Thus, we have stayed fairly well informed about the development of this vehicle. You can see a clear evolution from this light tank, which, according to Spanish reports, was easily stronger than our own tanks in the conflict, to this model, which is roughly analogous to our Panzer IV. I say 'roughly' because our technical people have assured me that this highly sloped armor is a decisive advantage, given equal armor weight and thickness." Oster looked up at Speer, frowning. "An idiot child could look at the map and see that we are more worried about Stalin than we are about King Henri. Else why would we have kept three hundred kilometers of eastern Poland? It's not like Lwow is worth a damn as a vacation retreat. If we truly expect to fight the Reds... they outnumber us, they can play the Fabian game forever..."

"Fabian game?"
"They can just keep retreating until we can no longer advance. Roman general, Fabius Cunctator, made the technique famous."
"Ah, I see, please continue."
"That's really all there is to it. We need to have one excellent tank for every five good tanks of theirs, and all evidence is that this is a very good tank."

Speer leaned back, rubbing his eyes. "General Oster..." He sighed. "I could call this conference, but it won't do any good. Here, read this." He slid a sheaf of papers at Oster and began reciting from weary memory. "The Chancellor wants a fleet of thirty battleships and an equal number of battlecruisers, plus fifteen carriers, plus escort vessels, plus construction for our allies, because the Turks, Hungarians, and Spaniards can't build their own fleets. The Luftwaffe wants to build a fleet of four-engine bombers... for the same reasons you mention, because a Ju-88 won't reach Moscow. Sweden is threatening to cut our iron supply. Oh, and the Army just let a four-year contract to 'that fellow Porsche' for that new heavy tank of theirs."

Oster tossed the papers back on the desk in disgust. "The Tiger isn't the solution, we can't field enough of them and it's basically a very heavy box with a very heavy gun. I looked into it before I came here."

Speer looked at him in speculation. "General... would you say that Hindenburg is running his office any more?" Oster snorted, shaking his head. "All that Oskar the Lesser is running is a convoy of loot trucks to his eastern estates."

"Then we can help each other. I will call this conference, and in return, I want full assistance from your intelligence staff, locating and keeping resources flowing into the Reich." Oster looked doubtful, and Speer continued, "I need someone in the Army on my side. I can help you, but it will be difficult for me. If I'm going to do this, I need every scrap of paper you can bring me to support the decision. I'll call the conference for early in '43, so you have a week to build an unassailable brief. Can you do it?"

"Minister, is the King of Poland a German?"

86. The Retooling, Part II


U-3008
Scapa Flow, German Empire
25 December 1942

"Captain, we're at the outer markers. Hydrophones report no surface contacts. Peroxide cells are at sixty percent. Batteries are at full charge." The watch chief shook Günther Prien awake with this report, and Prien yawned hugely before nodding absently and rousing himself from his bunk. Sinking the Bearn had earned him both the Pour le Merite and command of this new boat, Dönitz's pet project. U-3008 was so far out of the normal numbering sequence because it was a special craft, and it was infinitely better than the Type IX. He loved the Type IX dearly, but this new boat was... something else entirely.

They had left Wilhelmshaven at roughly 2100 Berlin time on the twenty-third, dove, and turned northwest. Once they were at their cruising depth, below the thermocline, Prien had turned to his first officer, grinned, and said, "Papa Karl says we're supposed to test this thing, let's see what it can do." The Walter drive had performed as expected, despite the worries of his engineer, and the new U-boat had knifed silently through the water at half again what a Type IX could manage on the surface. Now they were running at thirty meters, slowed to use their hydrophones and to avoid collision in the tricky waters off Scapa Flow.

As he made his way forward, past the galley freezer - a freezer, on a U-boat! - he heard the continuous soundings from the conn, and ran his hand through his hair one last time before stepping onto the bridge. It had not had time to get greasy, nor his face to grow more than a day's stubble. "Captain on the -" He waved irritably, glancing at the too-alert seaman who had begun to announce his presence. "Carry on, and get me some coffee, damn it. Too early in the day for this." That got him a dutiful laugh - the day-night cycle was pretty meaningless on a submarine - and a mug of coffee, for which he nodded gratefully, almost spitting as he scalded his tongue.

"Bring us up to periscope depth." The command was acknowledged and the U-boat slid upward, the scope extending upwards on a further order. "Mmm. Strange to think it's our fueling station now, eh?" he asked no one in particular; that received a grunt. It was too bright out for a semaphore lamp to be a reliable clue to the port that he was here, and it was supposed to be peacetime anyway, so he sighed, seeing nothing to practice a firing solution on. "Bring her on up."

Once the boat was surfaced, he got on the wireless, in the clear - no point in encoding everything for what was coming - and signalled the port captain. Kapitän Weiszacker, the newly appointed Scapa Flow port captain, was apoplectic, his displeasure clearly audible even through the popping and hissing of the radio. "No one told me you were coming! We've nowhere for you to dock, certainly nowhere secure from local eyes!" Prien shrugged, even if Weiszacker could not see it. "Sir, FdU was supposed to have transmitted my orders on the twenty-third via special transmission." 'Special transmission' was sufficient euphemism for Enigma; he sipped his coffee again. A pause ensued while Weiszacker found the reports from two days prior. "Ah... yes, here I have it. You're not expected until the first." Weiszacker was frankly incredulous. Prien had not seen that packet of orders, and almost spilled his coffee in surprise. If even the designer had predicted a week...

He quickly recovered his composure and did his best to give a deadpan reply. "Well, sir, we're here now, may I tell my crew that we'll have Christmas ashore?"

---

TO: FDU
FM: NAVAL STATION SCAPA FLOW

WISH REPORT SPEED TRIALS U3008 COMPLETE 0725 25DEC1943 - CREW PLACED ON PASS UNTIL FURTHER ORDERS

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---

Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau GmbH
Bremen, German Empire
6 January 1943

Status symbol or not, Wilhelm Canaris loathed traveling by Drache. The helicopter was noisy, windy, and occasionally prone to falling from the sky, unlike the little Stork. The Kaiser loved them, though, and poor Volkmann's wife Hanna had convinced Wilhelm somehow to use them as the fleet's couriers. That the Drache was also manufactured here at Bremen made it all but impossible to avoid it for today's errand. He glanced at the pilot as the helicopter settled, rocking on its gear. The rotors spun down slowly, and the pilot returned his look, giving a thumbs-up and letting Canaris know it was clear to exit. He did so with his hand clapped tightly on his cap, bent in an undignified posture as he sprinted out from beneath the rotors.


Waiting to greet him was a stocky, mid-height man in a dark overcoat and no hat. He was much more used to propeller wash, and had long ago given up on greeting visitors with any form of headgear. "Admiral!" he yelled and offered his hand, his volume decreasing as the rotors slowed further. "Thank you for coming, I'm glad you were able to make it!"

"Mmm. Doctor Tank, I presume?" Canaris asked, leaning close rather than yelling. Tank nodded enthusiastically, clapping Canaris's hand between his and pumping vigorously. "In the flesh, Admiral. Now, would you care to go inside?" Canaris nodded, already chilled to the bone, and the two of them walked into a hangar, turning into the row of offices Tank maintained to keep himself close to flight operations. "What's this all about, then, Doctor?" Canaris asked as Tank hung up his overcoat.


"Admiral, let me be blunt. Your carrier fleet is inefficient." Canaris began to bristle, and Tank held up a hand. "It's hardly your fault, they have done miracles with what they have. But we both know that Willy's fighter is a delicate little flower, and the Stuka is... not very rugged." If there was one thing Tank had in abundance, it was confidence. "General Osterkamp asked me to speak to you, based on his experience in the West. You know they were about halfway to phasing out the Stuka and just letting the fighter pilots carry rocket pods by the end of the campaign? Just not enough legs and those legs were too easily shot out from under 'em."

Canaris, in a poor mood from the greeting, the helicopter flight, and the explosion of funds flowing to Dönitz after Prien's sprint from Wilhelmshaven to Scapa Flow, was hardly in a mood to listen to a pilot prattle about airplanes and cut Tank off. "Get to the point, Doctor."

"My point is that I think that you should just reset your entire carrier air force. Switch from using two basic designs in three airframes... 109, 87 bomber, 87 torpedo... and just use one. The Luftwaffe was carrying out some experiments, and it works. Besides, we both know how much work Willy in Munich had to do to get your Messerschmitts capable of landing on a flight deck. I can promise you a much more rugged, robust airframe before any modifications."

Canaris shook his head. "Thanks, but I already had a man look at it, your fighters are simply too big for the ships we have."

"Then build new ships, Admiral! I heard the Naval Speech, and I know the Chancellor wants fifteen carriers. Fifteen. Your new ships could take advantage of everything you learned, and accommodate more and heavier aircraft. Now, I'm not a naval architect -" Canaris had the feeling that was as close as Tank would come to an admission of weakness - "but I'm sure that the bright boys at the Marinewerft probably have something on the books already."

Canaris sighed, sitting without invitation, and began to tick off points on his fingers. "What you say makes sense, and to be honest I was thinking on similar lines already, but there are certain factors you must address. First. We are not building any more ships around airplanes, we are building the airplanes for the ships. Your aircraft must be able to take off from... let's say... two hundred meters. It must be capable of landing with an arrestor hook. Second. It must be capable of folding down inside a hangar. Third. It's got to be competetive at all altitudes in all conditions with the existing Messerschmitt design or whatever he puts forward as the next-generation fighter, and I promise, I am sending him these same requirements. Fourth, it must have a range no shorter than seven hundred and fifty kilometers each way, which will allow us to maintain a hundred-kilometer perimeter and still have enough fuel to fight and loiter." He took a deep breath; Tank had nodded at each of the requirements, scribbling furiously on a notepad. The next might be the dealbreaker. "Fifth. Based on your own premise, it must be capable of carrying a greater munitions load than a Stuka for surface attack missions and still meet the takeoff requirements fully laden. This means a half-ton centerline torpedo, or distributed bomb load in excess of half a ton between wings and centerline."

Tank laughed softly, looking up from his notepad. "You don't ask much, do you, Admiral?" Canaris smiled thinly. "If I habitually settled for less, Doctor, the Royal Navy would still anchor at Scapa Flow."

---


Zündapp Panzerfabrik GmbH
Nünberg, German Empire
18 January 1943

Johann Volkmann was in heaven.

On Kleist's recommendation, he had been given a battalion, and based on his own record, it was a very special battalion indeed: Sonderpanzerbattailon 101, the first battalion to be equipped with the new Tiger. He had corrected one of the serious flaws in the armored battalion he had landed with in Britain, with the battalion headquarters mounted in tanks like the company commanders, rather than in halftracks. It was a cramped headquarters, with extra radios crammed willy-nilly into Porsche's already crowded turret, but if it meant that he could keep pace with his lead elements, it was worth the discomfort.

Today, he was actually looking backwards across the engine deck in consternation. "Wittmann!" he yelled into the radio. "Close it up and stay on the road!" He shook his head. Michael Wittmann might be God's gift to the armored branch, and certainly thought he was, but he made Johann look cautious by comparison. Wittmann's platoon, the lead platoon in today's exercise behind the headquarters, was splayed out halfway across the dirt roads, and he could just feel Porsche glaring down from one of the observation towers through field glasses, clicking in disapproval. Wittmann was pushing his vehicles hard, but he was also throwing up excess dust plumes. Beyond bad tactical sense, it also obscured Porsche's view of his creations, and frankly, he was tired of hearing Porsche complaining when he could not see his work. He was generally tired of Porsche's self-congratulatory manner, but driving this magnificent beast made up for it.

He shrugged and glanced around, seeing the target. "All units, this is Spearhead, target designated eighteen hundred meters, crest of Hill 725, confirm target and engage. Do not, repeat do not slow down, fire on the run. Blank charges, repeat blank charges, how copy? Over." A ragged chorus of confirmations came back through the radio and the battalion rotated to target the hill, still speeding along. "Speeding" was, of course, relative, for the Tiger was not as fast as the Panzer IV, but it could almost keep pace, on roads. Off-road, Johann had his doubts, and he certainly would not want to bring one across a wet beach. One by one, the guns fired, and he was satisfied; without a projectile, it was impossible to confirm their gunnery, but Wittmann's gunner was Unteroffizier Woll. He remembered Woll from Britain. The man could hit a mouse at 1800 meters with this gun.

He glanced back at the observation tower and saw a handkerchief waving. On the secondary radio, Porsche's voice came in. "Good, good, bring them in and tell them I've laid on dinner. I'm sorry I can't stay, conference in Berlin tomorrow. I'd say you're about ready for Grafenwöhr, though, Major."

"Yes, Doctor, bringing the battalion in." He switched to the battalion network and barked out, "Knock it off, repeat knock it off, bring it in, Ferdinand says he's laid on dinner. Expect to go running in the morning, people."

Porsche's field dinners could be extravagant affairs - long trestle tables piled with food, even the meanest private drinking captured French champagne - and today was no exception. Apparently he was in a good mood, Johann reflected. Otherwise it might have been black bread and hard sausage, followed by an all-nighter for the engineers. There had been a few of those nights. Porsche had tried to convince him at one point to endorse an assault gun idea of his, an open-topped monstrosity that didn't so much roll on its treads as waddle. Johann had almost spat out his champagne, and had called Wittmann over. It was a poor idea to stroke Wittmann's ego, but he had come ashore at Dover in an amphibious assault gun with Manstein's Garde du Corps, so he knew more than a little about the field. When presented with the concept, Wittmann had demolished it quickly. "Never work, sir. Open top is an invitation to grenades, treads are too narrow, and that engine's powerful enough for a light truck, not a seventy-ton land battleship. If you enclose it and put something stronger than a motorboat engine in there, maybe," he had concluded, still looking dubious. Porsche had been furious at this rebuff, and had barely stalked away from the soldiers before launching into an attack on the engineering staff for proposing such a ridiculous design. Johann pitied them; he was quite certain that Porsche had come up with the idea himself.

Today, though, Porsche was in a good mood, so Johann's men ate ludicrously well. In between mouthfuls, they traded stories of France and Britain, maneuvering crusts of bread on the table in place of tanks. He saw an engineering officer approaching, frowning and looking a little lost. Johann blinked twice, not believing his eyes, because that officer was definitely out of place.

"Willi!" he called, waving. "Hauptmann Volkmann, report!" Wilhelm came jogging over, grinning ear-to-ear and saluting. "Strange seeing you in an army uniform, Willi," Johann grinned, ignoring the salute and grabbing his hand. "And here, why?"


Willi shrugged. "I actually just came by to pick up a car. Finally bought one. Though between you and me," he added, leaning close, "I don't see how I'm going to keep the kids in it, it's tiny!" Johann blinked and laughed. "That doesn't explain how you're here, though!"

"I'm... well-informed. I heard about your new assignment, and thought since I was down here anyway, I'd track you down. So this is the Tiger, huh? Mm. Doesn't look like it would've been much use in Serbia, that's for sure. Poland, now... Poland it would've been a terror." Wilhelm stroked his chin, looking the Tiger over critically. "You really think that exposed engine grille is a good idea? Get a 'werfer team back there, and you've got a roasted crew."

Johann shrugged. "In a perfect world, the grenadiers keep you and your engineers off of me." Wilhelm looked appropriately dubious, and he sighed. "Yes, yes, I know, it's a risk, but there's no such thing as a perfect vehicle, Willi, as you well know."

"Excuse me, sir, Oberleutnant Wittmann," interjected another man, jamming his hand forward at Wilhelm, who shook it, not expecting the move. He instantly looked suspicious, and Wittmann grinned, still talking. "I saw you from over there, thought you looked a lot like our Major, must be his brother. Parachutist? That's pretty impressive, how's duty over there, get a lot of the ladies?" he asked with a wink, and Wilhelm rescued his hand. "Just my wife, lieutenant," he replied with a frown. Wittmann sensed that he had overshot, but was never one for careful withdrawal. "Well sir, he looks a lot like you, but without the gut," he teased Johann. Johann blinked. "Gut?" he murmured to himself, unconsciously glancing down. He had deliberately flogged his battalion physically to keep them from getting too soft at Porsche's plant. A moment later, he recognized it as a joke; Wilhelm remained whipcord-lean, apparently incapable of sustaining any mass of either muscle or fat.

"Wittmann," Johann eventually sighed, "dismissed. Enjoy dinner, and don't butt in when you're not asked." Michael Wittmann finally took the hint and retreated, leaving the two Volkmanns together. "I sometimes wish we were still at war, just so I had an enemy I could point him at," Johann complained, and Wilhelm snorted. "Your own pet Fitzgerald, eh?"

"Yes, whatever happened to him, anyway?"

"Blue cross for holding the lighthouse, then just got assigned to the Royal Bavarian Irish Regiment." Wilhelm kept a straight face through the last, which was better than Johann had managed. "Royal Bavarian Irish Regiment?" Wilhelm nodded, and Johann snorted. "A whole regiment of them? God help the Kaiser, I have a feeling he'll need it."

Kurt_Steiner said:

Mmmh. I forgot it! Time to tame the Bear!

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Not until 1944. Papen gets a year and a half of peace.

Enewald said:

And that is how you changed a minister, with this little devilish plot running through your head?

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Pretty much. Need a reason for Hindenburg to go. Referring to him as 'the lesser' seems appropriate, as he is to Paul von Hindenburg as Herbert von Bismarck was to Otto, and Paul von Hindenburg sets a pretty low bar as is. However, he's well-connected and Wilhelm's likely to believe the best of his friends. Oster, meanwhile, is quite willing to go outside regular channels, without resorting to begging the British to assassinate Hitler in this timeline.

Enewald said:

German special forces, The Royal Bavarian Irish Regiment?

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In the same way that the United States Marine Corps is considered "special forces" depending on who's writing the list, yes. Other than that? No, just a very highly motivated conventional unit.

trekaddict said:

It'd probably be best to get Porsche out of Tanks and, god forbid, aircraft and into cars. Somehow I think his legacy in cars would be more enduring.

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Yes, Porsche in aircraft seems like a terrible idea. There are already plenty of impractical dreamers in the aviation industry, the last thing it needs is Porsche. Don't worry, Porsche doesn't get his claws in the Panther or the Tiger II. I'd have to load up the save and dig through the log, but I believe the Panther will be designed and built in Essen.

Kurt_Steiner said:

Time to make a German version of the King's German Legion, methinks.

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Given that the KGL was formed from uprooted Germans, that might be a little tricky, since most of the uprooting was done by or as a consequence of German action.