There goes another cameo here...
Third set - The Brown Bolshevik.
Munich, August 16th, 1921
The Bürgerbräukeller was, as it was usual, full of noise and smoke, of laughs and shouts, filled with a rush of activity that made an unknown observer to think that the crown gathered there were afraid that the world was going to vanish from one second to the next.
-I told you, Adolf! -there was a voice shouting to an angered young man- The Kaiser, that fool, he has sent us into war needlessly. We have bleeded and won a victory for him, but, see what we got for all our sacrifices! We're still working for a system that is against our own interests and needs.
Rage appeared in Hitler's eye, but he remained silent. A few seconds later he muttered:
-The Kaiser... that Imperialist pig -Then he broke into an appassionate speech-. They stabbed the German proletariat in the back, Jakob! They stabbed us in the back! They have stolen us our chance to give freedom not just to Germany, but to the whole world! They have betrayed us! Pigs... -Hitler's eyes blazed in fury-. Dogs. All of them. They keep us chained and they have stolen our victory...
After a few minutes in silence he looked around and his face redened again with anger. Both raised and went outside. Strolling up and down they finally were looking at a brilliant restaurant where the nouveau riche bragged off about their money and situation.
-Just look, Jakob... -Hitler was looking at the men clothed in expensive black ties and the women who slumped under the weight of their jewels-.You just see defeated men and defeated women in their moment of victory. Is that a victory? Sunk in durnkeness and despair, in lust and lies! It's not when I was young, in Vienna. Oh yes, then, in Vienna. The bright and eager expressions of the proud German people of those days... they are gone. -Then, pointing his finger to the bright lights of the restaurant, he added, with un unrestrained hatred on his voice-. The only one who are smiling are the traitors, the Pigs. Our enemies. The enemies of the Proletariate. My enemies.
They kept walking, and then, with a fierce glance, Hitler looked at Jakob and said.
-Some day I'll awake Germany to make her to throw away the chains that repress her. Some day the Pigs will pay for their betrayal.
-You should write a book about it -Jakob said, half smiling in the dark night.
-Perhaps... I'm thinking about it. I'm a kind of an artist, you see.
-Really?
-Yes. Let me tell you about my days in Vienna, when the Pigs of the upper class rejected me twice to enter in the Academy of Fine Arts.
Second set - The Failure of a Republic.
Berlin, 22h November, 2003
In Käthe's room
[...] The Kaiser himself made no attempt at resistance, he approved everything: both the change in the Constitution as well as the plea for an armistice. Thus, when the Kaiser with his entourage finally called on the aged Reich Chancellor at 16 pm, everything had already been decided. All that was left to do was to draft the Imperial Decree on constitutional changes. Then von Papen, who, as a patriot was shaken, anounced his determination to resign. He did not want to have a hand in ushering in a parliamentary régime! Even if the Kaiser did not like it, he accepted von Papen's resignation.
Suddenly, after five years of contested world war, defeat was admitted. The edifice created by Bismarck was being tearing down, but no one seemed to get excited, but a young officer. While the resignations of the Chancellor and the Secretary of State caused some debate, the whole issue of pleading for an armistice went quite smoothly. Just an officer, Oberst i.G.Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, who was in those days a staff officer to the headquarters of the Ersatzheer ("Replacement Army"), expressed his opposition to what he called "the betrayal of the Secret Germany" as he clearly saw the real consequence of Zeitzler's actions, that is, the betrayal of Germany and the present legacy of bitterness and resent that pervades all around our country.
Trying to avoid that, Stauffenberg met with Generalfeldmarschall Erich von Manstein to persuade him to act against Zeitzler and to advice the Kaiser against the plea for surrender, as, due to Germany's delicate situation, it came too late to save anything. However, von Manstein just barked back "Prussian generals don't rebel!" and put Stauffenberg under temporary house arrest. Before being arrested, he had the chance to call one of his aide-de-camp, lieutenant Werner von Haeften, to warn the other conspirators. It was in that moment when the order “Walkyrie” was given.
It is my purpose to prove that, had Stauffenberg acted in a different way and met with different high ranking officers, the fate of Germany would have been quite different.
First set - The Failure of a Revolution.
Berlin, July 5th, 1944
The war was in its fith year. It had ravaged Africa and now the storm was abating itself against Europe and Asia. It had all began in 1939, when an extremely ambitious and revengeful Commune de France and its ally, the Union of Britain, had declared war upon the German Reich, willing to take revenge from their defeat in the Great War (1914-1919). Now, after defeating France in 1939, Germany saw herself trapped in the war started by its puppet, MittelAfrika, leaded by the wicked and expasionist Hermann Göring, which declared war in 1940 to National France and South Africa. This conflict proved a to be a worse front than Verdun, consuming German resources at a vast speed. When finally the Combined Syndicalist States of America, joined Britain after being attacked by Japan, Germany found herself resisting the onslaught of the Syndicalist British hordes which, mainly helped by Reed, after defeating MittleAfrika and helped by the Syndicalist orientated revolutions in Egypt, had landed in Italy in early 1943 and in France on June 1944. Finally, On the Far East, the Empire of the Rising Sun had repeated the Russian example and had taken profit of the troubles of Germany to annihilate the AlgOstAsien Gmbh and to put the Qing Empire into his influence, going then into war with the Combined Syndicalist States of America. However, now Tokio was facing too the rage of the Syndicalist State, and its troops were pushing the Imperial troops back to the Home Islands. Even the revengeful remains of the British Empire (Canada and Australasia) and the decadent National France that had used the chance to strike back, siding with those who had been its mortal enemies until recent times (a paradox caused, alàs, by Germany herself), grabbing what the could of the dying MittelAfrika state.
Claus von Stauffenberg, as most of the young officers of the Imperial Army, felt outraged by the coward attack of France and had joined the war filled with national pride. When the war turned from defence into colonial expansion in Afrika, Stauffenberg began to drift away from this initial position. Trapped between his individual conscience and his religious convictions on one side, and his sense of duty on the other, Stauffenberg would not began to get in touch with the ring of the German oppposition to the war until 1941, when he saw clearly that the war had become an inmoral colonial war of sheer aggression.
Thus, it would be then when he stated, to an awed young officer called Axel von dem Bussche: "
ich betreibe mit allen mir zur Verfügung stehenden Mitteln den Hochverrat... " ("I am committing high treason with all my might and means....") -1-. It wouldn’t be until Zeitzler put his project in motion that Stauffenberg had the opportunity to put an end to the war
As soon as Wolf finished his report, Reinhard Heydrich felt a sudden need to kill someone. However, he obliged himself to remain calm. After a few minutes of silence, he asked, in a dangerous amused way:
-How many months have passed since the last failure of the Sonderkommando Hexen, Wolf? What was that? Oh, yes, I remember... the Naudabaum disaster. And now this. I wonder what would say Scheel about.. . oh, Scheel, how kind of you to come so soon!
Obersturmbannführer Prof.
Dieter Scheel freezed at the door when saw the wolfish smile of Heydrich, but he moved before Heydrich could bark at them. However, the next comment by the Reichsführer put the fear of God into them.
-Still questing for Azathoth, Scheel? Nay, I was told that your department is quite busy with another experiment... –Heydrich paused, frowning as if he was lost in deep thoughts, trying to remember something. Then, clasping his fingers, he said, amused-. I remember! Unternehem Totenwelt, isn’t? Well, well, well. For a moment, forget about that, Scheel. Now, explain me what has happened with the Timepiece. And, watch out, give me a good explanation, or I swear that you’ll see that Totenwelt by yourself this very night...
Even if the statement was not adressed to them, Helmuth could not help to notice a cold feeling running down his spine seeing Heydrich's charming smile glaring the cold room.
-1- It seems that Stauffenberg repeated the same sentence at least two times, in addition to the one mentioned here (well, in OTL): the first one to Rudolf Fahrner, a friend of him and follower, like Claus, of the poet Stefan George, and to Urban Tiesch, a friend of Fahrner. A catchy sentence, don't you think?
