He finished the Lucky Strike and flicked the still-glowing butt away over the balcony railing before drawing the half-empty soft-pack from inside his thick, army greatcoat and picking out another cigarette. Schiller offered the pack around, two of the escorts taking one also, and the third man quickly produced a Zippo lighter which he used to light all of them as the others leaned forward in turn, hands cupped about their faces to protect against the chilly evening breeze.
Drawing in another deep breath, Schiller released the resulting plume of smoke into the air in a long, desultory sigh. He could remember how excited he’d openly acted during the earlier campaigns, and that and mostly been the truth, but that confidence, drive and vision he’d shared with his friend and long-time commanding officer was failing him now as he stood there in the midst of what had become the Wehrmacht’s finest victory.
If Albert Schiller wanted to really dig at the roots of the problem, he understood the reasons well enough. Unlike him, Kurt Reuters was a truly driven man, whose extra years meant he’d grown up through the absolute worst of the terror and privation that had plagued Germany following the end of the Second World War. The Kurt Reuters that Schiller had known in Realtime was a man of strong opinions, high morals and a powerful sense of honour, but the Reichsmarschall had allowed all of that to be sublimated by his overpowering need to exact revenge on a world that had destroyed his life before he’d even been born: a world that had brought about the execution of his father and the death of his mother through depression and suicide.
Schiller, on the other hand, had been born an entire generation later and although Europe of the ‘Seventies and ‘Eighties had remained in the grip of a Cold War and the fear of nuclear holocaust, the West German economy had been far stronger. Schiller’s own family life as a child had itself been pleasant and uneventful, and as a young officer, straight out of the academy, he’d been inspired by Reuters’ intensity from the moment they’d met while serving with the Bundeswehr. They’d also become great friends over the years, as their military careers had grown together, but as the 1990s arrived, bringing Glasnost and Perestroika with it, the end of the Cold War suddenly and unexpectedly arrived.
Finally, the worldwide ‘peace’ the entire planet had dreamed of had come to pass, yet the subsequent downsizing of military forces on both sides, right around the globe eventually left many ‘casualties’, Schiller and his CO included. Reuters was forced into retirement almost immediately, entirely against his will, and Schiller was lucky to retain his career in a new and reunified Germany that struggled for many years after to recover economically from the absorption of the shattered and moribund DDR back into the nation.
By the first years of the 21st Century, the German economy had recovered well enough, but the new world of ‘Post-9/11’ no longer had so much need for a large and powerful standing army, and Oberst Albert Schiller of the Deutsche Bundeswehr also found himself staring directly down the barrel of forced redundancy and the loss of a professional life that was all he’d ever known.
He’d still kept in touch with his old friend and former CO however, and it was as his military career was winding down that Reuters had come to him with the wild and crazy proposal to change history itself. At first he’d gone along purely out of curiosity, never believing anything would seriously come from such a ridiculous idea, and by the time they’d come to realise the project might produce results, Schiller was far too deeply involved to back out. Although none of the businessmen financing the operation admitted it openly, both he and Reuters had known or at least suspected that Zeigler, Strauss and the others were Neo-Nazis. It was easy to ignore the truth however, when one was being well paid to carry out what was, in theory at least, an incredibly interesting and challenging research project: how to bring 1930s Germany out of the Great Depression and within a decade turn it into a true world power capable of conquering Europe and Great Britain.
Schiller would be lying to himself if he’d said there were no feelings of guilt over what they were doing, but they’d fooled themselves into believing the new Grossdeutschland they’d be helping to build would be truly great rather than just in name only. The ‘reality’ behind the ideals had of course never come to fruition, however the beliefs themselves had at least served to provide cold comfort and a casus belli for their actions as Reuters, Schiller and the others had set about changing the course of history.
The moral issues hadn’t truly become a problem for him until the very last weeks before their departure. It’d been relatively easy to rationalise about the Holocaust, and about the death and destruction they were planning, while they lived in a future that was seventy years and an entirely different world away. It had proven far more difficult during the brutality and insanity of the nascent Nazi regime of the thirties. The dark multiplicity of alliances and dealings they’d been forced to become party to had taken a savage toll on all their consciences, and it’d been difficult indeed, although none of them would ever call themselves poor as a result.
Schiller himself owned several very lucrative industrial concerns in Switzerland, and a great deal of land in Spain. He’d holidayed there several times in the last years before the outbreak of war, the fine weather and sweeping landscapes surrounding his country estate almost able to divert his mind from what he’d become involved in that’d ultimately provided the wealth that had made everything possible. Most of the time, if he kept himself busy and maintained his façade of irreverent sarcasm, he could forget about the fact that they’d sold their souls in return for their successes.
He’d forget about Rachael too, eventually… or, at least, he’d mostly convinced himself that he would. It was only at night, alone in his quarters, that he couldn’t push away the memories of the girl he’d met and fallen in love with just months before their ‘great’ mission was realised. Rachael Weinberg… her parents and grandparents would no doubt be rounded up by the Gestapo in the next few years, if they hadn’t been already… and Schiller knew they’d die, along with millions of others, as part of the plan for the ‘Final Solution’. The Führer was already developing the project in secret, although he’d never openly revealed to Reuters or the rest of the Wehrmacht… save for explicit orders to allow the Einsatzgruppen free reign in their conquered territories. Realtime studies of historical patterns suggested the persecution and eventual extermination of the Jews should have been less of a priority while the Nazis were provided with continuing successes, but somehow the New Eagles’ presence and effect on the world had instead accelerated it to the point that thousands across German-occupied Europe were already being collected, registered and shipped eastward to the camps.
‘What else could we do?’ Schiller thought darkly, staring out at the black waters beneath a dark, cloudy sky. The Wehrmacht and the Reichstag and the rest of them had asked that same question over and over as the Nazi Party rode roughshod all of them, and over the rest of the world as well. He knew all the history; he’d read all the books, and discussed all the reasons and the ramifications and the ‘what ifs’… and he remembered the guilt. Is there a single German of my time who’s never felt guilt? Year after year… our fault… declared time and again in schools, and in the media, and in the eyes of the rest of the world… and we were never allowed to forget… or to be forgiven by some, he admitted silently, his features hardening slightly as the thoughts entered his mind. Yet they were right all the same: our fault indeed, as much for what we didn’t do, or could’ve prevented, as anything we blindly went along with as a nation. How much clearer that is, now I’ve lived through it all and seen it for myself.