Chapter I
In which the gentle reader is introduced to our main characters, and is informed about the situation in the Third Reich in the early days of 1936.
It was an unusually cold morning in Munich, even for early January. Hans Grübermann was waiting in the train station for his childhood friend, Joachim Strauss. They haven't met for a long time now, and he was eager to see him again. "If it wasn't for this damn cold!" - he thought to himself.
The train was running late. Quite unusual, but not surprising, given the circumstances: a four kilometers long section of the railway was frozen over near Augsburg, and the trains had to slow down if they wanted to avoid running off the tracks. It was 6:17, the train was already six minutes late. If it was a Saturday or a Sunday, it wouldn't have been that much of a problem, but it was a Thursday. Hans should have been in the shop by 6:30 to open up. Still, he couldn't leave: he had to give Joachim the keys to his apartment, so he can settle in while Hans goes to work. Then in the afternoon, they can have some talk.
- Attention, please! The train from Frankfurt am Main will be delayed by twenty minutes due to technical difficulties. We apologize for your inconvinience. - creaked the voice of a young lady from the loudspeaker.
"Oh, that's just great! I will be late! Frau Liebigstein will surely deduce this from my wages! I should buy a newspaper or something while I'm waiting..." He stepped over to the newspaper booth nearby and bought that morning's edition of
Völkischer Beobachter. Not because he was that much into Nazi propaganda, but at least most of the articles in it were about real events. Not that there was any real alternative, anyway. He sat down on a bench and started to read.
He could only run through the paper briefly, before he was interrupted:
- Hans? Is that you? It's me, Erhard!
Hans looked up from his pepar. He recognized the young man in front of him instantly.
- Erhard? Erhard Straussenburg? Oh, my, how are you? I haven't seen you in ages!
- Yeah, I know! We haven't met in at least two years! What are you doing here? Waiting for a train? Or waiting for someone?
- Well, actually I was waiting for someone...
- Oh, is it a nice young lady? Do I know her? May that be Ethel from the class under ours? - Erhard was starting to get really excited. Not only did he just accidentally met one of his best friends from the old days, but he immediately stumbled upon some interesting romance!
- Ohm, no, it's not a lady. But you know
him. Joachim Strauss, the goalkeeper from the football team. He's on the train from Frankfurt, but the train was delayed by the snow.
- Ah, I see. Well, I was going to a class in the University, but to be honest, that was a rather boring class anyway. Geometry... Seriously, who would find drawing different shapes interesting?... At any rate, I can skip the class, and wait for this Joachim with you!
- If you want to... And how are you? What are you doing? I mean other than skipping classes...
- Well... I do a little bit of this, a little bit of that... I run errends, help out in shops or with the mail. You know, everyone has to make a living... And by the way, I do study a l...
- The shop! - cried Hans as he realized how late he already is - You know what? Could you do
me a favour to? I'm working in a food store five minutes from here, and I'm already late with opening this morning! Frau Liebigstein will fire me if I don't go right now, but there's all this snow and all, and I have to give the keys to my apartment to Joachim when he arrives. You know, he'll be staying with me for his short visit.
- Wait, slow down! What do you want from me exactly?
- Please, take these keys! - Hans reached to his pocket and handed over some keys from a keyring to Erhard. - Wait here for Joachim, and give the keys to him! He knows where I live, and will be able to get there on his own, but I
really have to go now! Please? Can you do this for me?
- Alright, alright. I've got top marks from numerical analysis, I'm pretty sure I can handle delivering some keys!... Now go, before you lose your job!
Hans thanked Erhard the favour, and hurried towards the exit, forgetting his newspaper on the bench. The young man sat down and took up the paper, turning right to the cartoon. (It was about a bolding man, most likely representing the aging British Empire, wrestling some Indian Elephant.)
"Will I even recognize this Strauss guy? I can't seem to remember him at all..." - And like that was its clue, the train from Frankfurt arrived on the fifth platform.
A tall, blonde man stepped off the train, stretching out his neck as much as he could, looking around. Obviously, he was looking for someone. But he couldn't find that man, as he already left the scene. "He must be here! Hans is always on time, although the same cannot be said about this train..." the man thought to himself. Then, with no other option in sight, he started walking towards the waiting room. "Maybe he also had trouble getting here? Or maybe some terrible accident happened to him on the way?" With such worries, he was approaching the benches, when he noticed a familiar face, reading the news on one of them, laughing out loudly.
- Erhard! I didn't expect to see you here! How is it going?
- Do I know you?
- Don't you remember me? I'm Joachim Strauss! I was wooing your younger sister during the last year of high school!
-
Now I remember... I also remember her not liking you that much, and father chasing you with his service rifle...
- Ah, those were the days! - said Joachim in a sudden rush of nostalgia.
- Yeah, I guess they were good days. For the most part. Things were simpler.
- Except for the state of the economy.
- Yes, except for that. But at least we had a bit more variety in the newspapers. Now every single one of them says the same thing.
- Why is that a problem? How many ways can you say the same truth?
- That would be a valid point, if we were talking about things like mathematical theorems, but...
- Why? What are we talking about? Surely not politics. Out on the streets. - Joachim had that particular stare in his eyes. Erhard immediately came to his senses.
- That reminds me. I've just met Hans Grübermann, who was waiting for you here to give you the keys to his apartment. He couldn't wait for you any longer, he had to go to work. I, on the other don't need to go to work, so I agreed to wait for you instead, and give you the keys. He told me that you would know what to do with it. - and with that, the young student handed over the keys to Joachim.
- Yeah, he gave me the address, I can find it on my own. They have those practical maps on every train station, where you can find any important...
- Yes, yes. Do you mind if I come along? I have nothing else to do, really. There's no point in going to the class half an hour late, and I hate geometry anyway...
- Yeah, why not. Anyway, how is your sister? - asked the tall man, but Erhard had his own unmistakable piercing stare which quickly convinced Joachim to change subjects.
The two men walked out of the train station and took a tram to Hans' place. If these were those "simpler times", maybe the people living in the house would have wondered, what are two strangers doing in the apartment of their neighbour with their very own keys no less. But alas, they weren't. They were these particular times, when people tended to ask no questions. They knew better.
*** *** *** *** ***
- "
...and thus, all German people can rest assured that the preparations for the Olympics are in the best of hands." Good! Very good, if I may say so myself. Which I do! - Martin Lederer, reporter of the
Völkischer Beobachter was absolutely satisfied with his article for tomorrows edition. He was also absolutely sure that the editor in chief will be satisfied, as well! Just like last week's article about the life of Hjalmar Schacht, former Minister of Economics, recently appointed Minister of Armaments, or yesterday's writing about the ceremony, where he officially laid down the symbolic founding stone of the so-called Siegfried Line, a series of fortifications spanning along the French border from Switzerland to Luxemburg and even up to Belgium. Some minimal defenses were already in place - said the piece - in the Northern half, and the new section behind the Rhine was planned to be similar in size and strength to the French counterpart, the Maginot Line. "In case of French aggression", officials said. Yes, of course.
He went down the hall of the office, right to the editor's office with the pack of papers he just finished. But in the office, he met someone he didn't really expect...
*** *** *** *** ***
- So, as I was saying, you don't need to worry that much, Erhard.
Erhard and Joachim were sitting in a café, not far from Hans' flat, drinking their coffee. Joachim continued:
- There's some serious industrial expansion in the Rurh, and that is a good thing. Very good, in fact. That is exactly what our economy needs right now. Just look at the United States! The recession hit them like noone else (maybe except our beloved Germany), and what do they do? They start even more businesses! Government funded businesses. And that's what this Schacht guy does, as well. Yes, some of these factories are producing small arms and bullets; yes, some of the projects are for fortifications; yes, some of the new contracts for our steel factory back in Frankfurt are for gun barrels, but that is only business. Italy is at war, they need supplies, and you can't really expect them to manufacture their own! I mean seriously... They are practically fighting a war of attrition with Ethiopia for crying out loud...
- That's not the point, Joachim. The point is that building up fortifications on the French border can mean no good, whatever it does to the economy now, because it will surely mean war sooner or later. I'm not saying that we will start this war of course. But wars are fought by both sides, the invader and the invaded as well. Mark my word: there will be war, and that can never be good...
*** *** *** *** ***
- Very good! Those fortifications will prove invaluable in detering the French from trying to force their decadent, imperialistic ideas upon us! - Wilhelm von Walsrode, the young, passionate lieutenant of the Wehrmacht was in the cantina in the barracks of the garrison near Munich. It was his last day on leave, before his unit started to redeploy to the border. It was his last beer before he had to go back to the barracks to get some sleep, while he could. And he spent this last beer talking to a young officer from logistics. This fellow, one Jürgen Blücher, was maybe a bit too talkative. In the last half hour, after his fifth round, he was babbling about his theories about the military plans of High Command, interpolated from the orders for supplies. He looked a lot smarter than that yesterday... The theory itself was rather solid, and made sense (a complete mobilization of the garrisons from their provincial barracks and redeployment to the borders with France, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland), but talking about such theories in great length was as far from being smart as it can get. Even in a military cantina.
With that thought, Wilhelm stood up, drank up the rest of his drink, payed and left. He had his fair share of lager this evening, but he held it as a matter of honour to still be able to stand up straight. The walk, as short as it was, helped him clear his head a bit. Tomorrow, 5:00 in the morning (which is about four hours from now...), his unit will set out for a location not yet disclosed (although Jürgen's information suggested Baden). He also heared some rumors this evening about some serious reorganisations in the army overall. He was currently an officer of the Infanterie-Regiment 19, 7. Infanterie Division, VII. Armeekorps, directly under the OKW, but if this whispering can be believed in, a new, "modern" approach is soon to be implemented in the army hierarchy. Something called "the rule of the fives"... Noone was sure what that actually meant (at least noone in the cantina, which is not really saying all too much), but that is how it should be. This is no business of the young officer corps. The generals definitely know what they are doing. He will know what he must know, when he must know. And he will always know, what to do. Always.
By the time he got this far with his theoretical reasoning, he already went through the entire routine of undressing, packing all his cloths in the correct order in the correct place, brushing his teeth, saying his evening prayer and getting into bed. Always know, what to do. Always.
Always...
Index