“I can be an idiot at times,” she muttered.
“Everyone can be an idiot at times,” Horst pointed out. “The only real question is just how well you cope with it when you realise your mistake.”
Gudrun nodded, then held his hand as she peered out of the window. It felt odd to be driving around the city in a government car, staring out of the tinted windows and knowing that the people couldn’t see her. She knew, all too well, that much of the city hated the government cars, hated how they could push everyone else off the road as they roared to their destinations. Now, she’d even heard reports of stones being tossed at government cars as they passed, even though the old government had fallen. Far too many repressed hatreds had started to come out…
“We have to win the war,” she said, as the car turned into a parking lot and stopped. “After that, we can worry about the politics.”
“Everyone else will be thinking differently,” Horst warned. “But if we don’t win the war, we’ll all wind up dead anyway.”
Gudrun nodded as Horst opened the door and helped her out of the car. She had no illusions about her fate if the SS captured her for a second time, particularly as they knew – now – that she’d been deeply involved in the movement, even if they didn’t believe she’d been the founder. She’d be tortured, then probably raped to death. The SS loved handing out gruesome punishments to traitors and terrorists. And her death would probably be displayed in cinemas all over the Reich, just to make it clear what fate any future rebels could expect.
Sickening, she thought.
She felt an odd twist in her belly as she walked towards the sports field. She’d had too much experience with them as a young girl, when the BDM matrons had forced her to run and play games until she’d been on the verge of collapse. She might have enjoyed some of the games, she admitted privately, if the matrons hadn’t taken them so seriously. The winning teams were always feted, but the losers were punished… as if they’d meant to lose.
And a great many matrons have been killed or forced to flee, she thought, nastily. No one was interested in protecting the bitches, not now. If only one in ten of their former victims had both the desire and nerve to take revenge, none of them would be safe. Serve the monsters right!
“They’re just warming up,” Horst said. “But at least they have enthusiasm.”
Gudrun nodded. The sports field was dominated by men, ranging from sixteen to twenty-five, who were being put through their paces by a handful of military veterans. Most of them, at least, would have a fairly good grounding, thanks to the Hitler Youth; a handful, she couldn’t help noticing, seemed to have let themselves get overweight since leaving school and entering the workforce. The veterans seemed to be working hard to separate out the ones with true promise from everyone else, she noted; the former would be amongst the first to be given guns and put on the walls.
If the SS reaches Berlin, she thought. If…
“Councillor Wieland,” a middle-aged man said. He reminded Gudrun of her father, although he didn’t have the iron sternness she’d come to associate with the man who’d sired and raised her. “Welcome to the madhouse.”
Gudrun smiled and shook his hand. “Thank you,” she said. He didn’t seem anything like as formal as her father either. “And you are?”
“Oberfeldwebel August Sattler,” the man said. “Recently called back into service after five years out of the Heer.”
“Thank you for your service,” Gudrun said, and meant it. “How are they shaping up?”
Sattler smiled as he turned to indicate the groups of men. “The ones with real military training – anything past the Hitler Youth – have already been forwarded to more advanced training cadres,” he said. “Everyone else… well, we’re getting there. Half of them are at the shooting range, learning how to put a bullet within a couple of metres of the target; the other half are doing PT here. There’s a handful that need more focused training, but realistically we don’t have the time to give them the care and attention they need.”
Gudrun frowned. “How bad is it?”
“Oh, there’s a handful of idiotic malingers in every batch of recruits,” Sattler said, dispassionately. “Little princes, mostly, who learned the wrong lessons in the Hitler Youth and never bothered to master discipline. Normally, we’d just send them for shit duty if they refuse to grow up; here, it’s a little harder to deal with them.”
“Send them to help build defences,” Horst suggested.
“It might come down to that,” Sattler said. “But realistically I wouldn’t trust them to dig a trench, let alone do anything more complex than carrying junk here and there.”
He shrugged. “Basic training normally takes at least three months, Councillor,” he added, bluntly. “I’ve been told that we may expect an invasion at any moment, so we’re cramming as much as we can into a single training period. They’re not going to be up to normal levels, no matter how hard we push them, but hopefully we can get some advantages that will balance those problems out.”
Gudrun frowned. “Like what?”
“Fighting in a city gives the defenders a great many advantages,” Sattler said, bluntly. “We can wear the enemy down, although at a very high cost.”
“Very high,” Horst said.
Gudrun nodded. She’d have to discuss it with him afterwards. “I understand,” she said, slowly. “What are the odds?”
“Impossible to calculate,” Sattler said. “Our contingency plans for defending Berlin, I have been told, are years out of date. Nothing is what it was back in 1960. We’re having to improvise defences and ready ourselves for a major offensive.”
“I know,” Gudrun said. She’d been told the same, by Voss and his comrades, but it was nice to have independent verification. The Wehrmacht was a power bloc in its own right. “Can you introduce me to some of your trainees?”
“Of course,” Sattler said. “If you’ll follow me…?”
Chapter Eight
Berlin, Germany
3 September 1985
Horst kept his opinion to himself as Oberfeldwebel August Sattler introduced Gudrun to a dozen trainees, reassuring her – in a manner Horst found quite irritating – that the new recruits would keep the Reich safe. Privately, Horst was much less impressed. The recruits might have been in the Hitler Youth, but it was alarmingly clear that their tutors hadn’t prepared them for the rigours of war. The training forced upon children born in the east – who knew they were in a war zone from the moment they were old enough to walk – was rarely given to their western counterparts. To them, the Hitler Youth was just another imposition from their ultimate superiors. It was an attitude that could not be tolerated in the east.
Gudrun had grown better at politics, he thought, as he followed her around the training field and listened as she chatted briefly to some of the trainees. Most of them eyed her with open awe, although a handful appeared doubtful that she’d managed to play a leading role in overthrowing the previous government. That was an attitude that wouldn’t have lasted long in the east, either. Women on farms could be just as tough as their male counterparts and often had to drop tools and pick up weapons to fight for their lives. They might be barred from front-line combat units, but that didn’t keep them from having to fight. Horst’s own mother had had to fight to defend herself several times.