Gudrun nodded in agreement. Every last schoolchild in the Third Reich was told, time and time again, that the United States was a capitalist nightmare, a melange of interracial and incestuous breeding, a place where women led men and children ran riot in the streets. She was sure that was a lie – discovering that Jews weren’t misshapen monsters had shocked her to the core – but far too many Germans believed it without question. The mere suggestion that the Americans were backing the provisional government would cripple the government’s legitimacy. And it wasn’t as if it had much legitimacy.
“And they will certainly be considering their own interests,” Horst warned. “They will probably not be displeased if the Reich split into two pieces.”
“Or more,” Schulze agreed. “Germany North is tightly tied to us, but Germany South and Germany Arabia might manage to go their own way. I doubt either we or Germany East have the ability to force them back into line.”
“And they would become far more powerful, relatively speaking,” Gudrun said. International politics, she’d discovered, had a great deal in common with playground skirmishing. “They would prefer us broken and weakened.”
“Yeah,” Schulze said. “They may help us, but they’ll look to their own interests first.”
Gudrun nodded and rose. “I’ll see you at the meeting tonight?”
Schulze, thankfully, didn’t look surprised to hear she was intending to attend the Reich Council meeting. Gudrun was fairly sure that some of the councillors – particularly Arthur Morgenstern – thought she should be playing with dolls or looking for a suitable man, rather than involving herself in politics. It was infuriating, given that none of them would hold the positions they did if it wasn’t for her. But then, Morgenstern had an excuse, of sorts. His daughter was no older than Gudrun and she had a tendency to be silly.
So does her mother, Gudrun thought. But no one can deny she’s effective.
“It starts at seven,” Schulze said. “Be seeing you.”
Gudrun glanced at Horst as they walked out of the office, passing the pair of armed guards and heading down the corridor. No one was taking chances, these days; everyone believed that the SS could drop a second commando team onto the roof at any time. Gudrun had been told that the SS would have to get very lucky to sneak an aircraft through the growing network of air defence radars covering the Reich, but the SS had planned and carried out far more daring dangerous operations in the past. The guards – and clerical workers – were all armed, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. She couldn’t help wondering if that meant they would accidentally wind up firing on each other if there actually was an attack.
“He seems distracted,” she mused, as soon as they were out of earshot. “Is that normal?”
“He was a factory worker only a few months ago,” Horst reminded her. “Now he’s lost his son, seen his government overthrown and found himself forced to fill a pair of very big shoes.”
Gudrun nodded, feeling a stab of guilt. It had been her fault, after all. She knew she was being stupid – she knew the Reich would have had problems with or without her – but she couldn’t help feeling guilty. Hundreds of people had already died – perhaps thousands, in Germany East – and it was all her fault. She’d started the ball rolling.
“You need a bigger portfolio,” Horst added, as they walked down the stairs. “I imagine everyone else on the council is already jockeying for position.”
“I know,” Gudrun said. It was a minor frustration – and, she suspected, a bigger one for Schulze. He had a very mixed cabinet and almost all of them were trying to build power bases of their own. “But apart from representing the students… what can I do?”
“Probably aim for the interior ministry,” Horst said, after a moment. “You don’t have much experience, but the people underneath you would know what to do. You’d only have to set policy. And you wouldn’t be warped and twisted by years spent climbing up the ladder.”
Gudrun shook her head. “It might be better to run for a seat on the Reichstag, when we finally hold elections,” she said. “I’d have a reasonable chance of winning.”
“A reasonable chance,” Horst repeated. “I’d say very few people would dare to stand against you.”
“Hah,” Gudrun said.
She shook her head in irritation. She was famous, true. But a sizable percentage of the population refused to believe that a young girl – a girl – could possibly start an underground political movement. As far as they were concerned, Gudrun was nothing more than a latter-day Irma Grese; a woman, true, but not one who did anything for herself. There were quite a few people who claimed that the true originator of the movement had been killed by the SS – or had simply been too cowardly to reveal himself. They certainly didn’t give any credit to Gudrun!
“I’m serious,” Horst said. “But tell me. How long will it take for the various power blocks to outmanoeuvre the Reichstag?”
Gudrun scowled. She hadn’t known much about the inner workings of the Reich a year ago, but she’d always been a fast learner. The Reichstag had been nothing more than a rubber stamp for years, ever since Adolf Hitler had claimed supreme power for himself. Its members barely even met, save to engage in pointless ratification of laws and budgets hashed out by the Reich Council. Most of them had surrendered their posts without a fight almost as soon as it became clear the provisional government wasn’t going to collapse overnight.
And the Reichstag has no independent means to pressure the government bureaucracies, she thought, sourly. Their approval or disapproval is largely irrelevant.
“Not long,” she said, finally.
“Exactly,” Horst said. They reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the garage, walking across to the nearest government car. “The Reichstag doesn’t control anything, ergo the Reichstag is powerless. You need to fix that problem or our government will eventually collapse – or explode into chaos.”
Gudrun sighed, inwardly, as she climbed into the car. Horst was right, she told herself, as the engine roared to life. But she didn’t want to take a post she didn’t understand. It would be easy for her subordinates to outmanoeuvre her too, just as easily as the ministries could outmanoeuvre the Reichstag. The only way she could think of to give the Reichstag some clout was to put it in charge of distributing taxes, but the Finance Ministry wouldn’t give that up in a hurry. Hans Krueger might have been the closest thing to a moderate on the old Reich Council – he’d switched sides in a hurry – yet that didn’t make him a pushover.
It would mean giving up some of his power, she thought, rubbing her eyes.
She shook her head in irritation, mainly directed at herself. She’d dared hope that they’d bring lasting change – and they had – but she’d never thought she might have to keep working afterwards. And yet, what was she? A young woman who would become nothing more than a wife, a mother and a grandmother, while leaving the politics to the men? Or did she want to wield power and influence policy in her own right?