Planning for a Better Tomorrow
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“And this, Herr President, is but one of the offices where the High Command plans to defend the Fatherland. As a demonstration of our progress, we would like to show you Case White, the plan for the liberation of Posen and the Corrdor.” The officer guided him into a room lit by bright white lights, and it contained about a dozen officers talking and pointing at a map. The air in the room felt stale, and many of the officers were heavyset and pale. Typical staff officers, in other words.
The officers saluted as the president entered, but after a brief nod he surveyed the map. It was covered with pieces and tiles, representing German and Polish units. At the moment, Germany’s tiles were deployed near the eastern border of a considerably smaller Poland. “I approve,” he said after a moment. He looked at the map and thought. “This is Case White, you said?” [1]
The officer nodded. “As you can see, it assumes that we invade from all along the Polish border, and use our mobile forces to encircle the Poles near Posen.” At the officer’s command, some harried soldiers pushed pieces across the map, surrounding the Polish units. Those pieces were then carefully removed from the map, although a careless officer knocked over a Czech armored battalion.
“Fair enough, but what are the Poles doing at the time?”
The officer shrugged. “We anticipate they try to take East Prussia, and there’s a small chance we lose Königsberg. But for the most part, our aerial supremacy will let us interdict their troop movements, and we simply have more, and better ones.” He gestured to the soldiers, who moved some other pieces. “As you can see, after several weeks campaigning we expect to hold Warsaw.”
“Ultimately, we hope to trap the Polish military in a giant kessel before the city, either near Posen or to the east of Lodz.”
Stresemann stared at the tiles for a moment. They soldiers seemed giddy, like boys playing a game, but in his mind he saw burning villages and columns of refugees. “Why wouldn’t the Poles deploy their troops in Warsaw? House to house, they would grind our troops, no?”
The officer nodded. “We have a few reasons to hope that would not be the case. First, whether Warsaw holds is irrelevant. We don’t want the damned city. So their goal must be to defend the corridor, their Silesian holdings, and Posen.” He made a face. “Much good it will do them.” Continuing, the officer said, “Finally, if they deploy troops in Warsaw, then we might be able to classify the city as a military target, allowing us to bomb the city at will.”
Stresemann leaned on his cane. “I see. And this scenario presumes neutrality on the part of the other great powers?”
The officer nodded. “There are alternatives. Case Pink entails a joint invasion with the Soviets. Then we have plans for an invasion with the support of Lithuania-“[2]
Stresemann snorted. “But can we risk being tied to such a mighty nation?” He looked at the soldiers around him, and noticed how many were pale and haggard. “I approve. I do have one question, though. Your plan relies on the neutrality of the great powers. The Italians are feckless cowards who would rather make ice cream than fight, but what about the rest?”
The officer blinked. “What about them?”
“What of France? Do you really think that La Rocque would respect Locarno? Where is England? Did it sink beneath the waves? The Czechs,” he mused, “must be busy negotiating a new Concordat. Perhaps the Russians, if we do not buy them off, are busy undergoing an anarchist revolution. America, well, I imagine they’ve been ruined by tornadoes and financial speculation.”
The officer grunted. “America is tired of blood after the World War.”
Stresemann laughed bitterly. “You know, lad, I once thought as you did. America had done nothing since their brief war with Spain, and their Civil War before that. They had, in 1914, no army; and we were already blockaded, so what good was their navy?” His voice distant, he looked back to bygone days. “And so I urged the navy to deploy its u-boats against their transports, and hoped that we could choke the British Isles.”
The officer was silent. “You had every right, sir. It’s not as if the British had no qualms about starving Germany.”
Stresemann waved the comment aside. “Be that as it may, what did it get us?” He shrugged. “If the Americans had stayed neutral, we might have yet won.” He smiled fondly. “A German Empire, reformed to give the people a greater voice, astride Europe like a colossus. We could have saved Russia from Communism. We could have propped up the Habsburgs, instead of the patchwork of squabbling despots that replaced them.” His face darkened for a moment. “And if the war hadn’t uprooted Germany’s middle class, ruined the lives and hopes of millions who had not caused the war, maybe we would never had to deal with the Nazis and their ilk.” [3]
The soldiers in the war room were silent for a moment, until one of the soldiers maneuvering pieces spoke up. “It is not too late, Herr President. Germany can find its rightful place in the sun.”
Stresemann shook his head. “The last war left Europe broken. With bigger bombs, better poison gas, and stronger artillery, what would be left standing? We can find our way without getting Germans killed.” He cleared his throat. “Still, I applaud your efforts to develop this plan. We must hope that we never have to use it, but if we do, then I am confident you will carry it out.” Stresemann looked at the Czech unit that had been pushed aside, and smiled. “Furthermore,” he added, “Czechoslovakia may indeed be otherwise distracted if we act.”
"Sir?"
Stresemann shrugged. "Nothing that isn't in their best interest, really."
[1] Before you ask, I took the first shot to fiddle with what the postwar borders would be.
[2] Case... White orange? Case Mandarin?
[3] Because obviously the silent dictatorship of Ludendorff and the quasi-Nazi ideology so common late in the war would have gone away if the people who proposed it led Europe, right?
) as France is no longer an ideological enemy at their front door. 
