But we wanted to expand the farms, he thought, sourly. There was no choice.
He rubbed his forehead, feeling his head start to pound. Hitler had never faced a civil war, not since the Night of the Long Knives; Himmler had narrowly escaped a civil war by coming to terms with his opponents. But he had to face a civil war, as well as an internal threat from the Gauleiters who didn’t support him. And he couldn’t even move against them without triggering a major crisis. All he could do was wait and pray that the coming offensive was defeated.
Pushing the thought aside, he rose and strode over to the giant window. Night was falling over Germanica, but the city was still brightly lit. The towering buildings, each one designed in the gothic style that had been so popular after the Third Reich had taken control of Europe, were a stunning testament to the city’s power. Even the centre of Berlin, designed by Albert Speer and Hitler himself, couldn’t match the sheer grandeur of Germanica.
But it will, he told himself. When we take the city, we will reshape it until all traces of the uprising are gone.
He smiled at the thought. Victory would bring more than mere power; victory would bring the opportunity to truly make a mark on the Reich. Berlin would be purged, everyone who had served in the rebel government marched out of the city and shot, along with everyone related to them. The Heer, the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine would be folded into the Waffen-SS, with loyalty to the New Order being placed ahead of everything else. And France, Italy and the other subject nations would be squeezed to the bone to rebuild the Reich. They’d been allowed too much independence over the past decade, even before the rebels started trying to dicker with them. They would learn that what little freedom they had was granted by the Reich.
And they will lose it if they defy us, he thought.
It wouldn’t stop there, he promised himself. The damned university would be shut down, the student traitors marched east and put to work in forced labour camps. Women would be pushed out of the workforce altogether and forced to bear children, with marriages arranged by the state if the parents were unwilling to do it for their daughters. The population of the Reich would start to rise again, allowing the remainder of Germany East to finally be brought into the Reich. And the war in South Africa would be rejuvenated, with more and more troops sent to Africa until the blacks were finally — ruthlessly — crushed.
The phone rang. He turned, feeling a hot flicker of anger. Who dared interrupt him so late at night?
“Holliston,” he said, picking up the phone.
“Mein Führer,” Maria said. “Minister Kuhnert requests an urgent meeting.”
“Oh,” Karl said. Territories Minister Philipp Kuhnert was an ally, of sorts. He certainly had nowhere else to go, after the uprising. Holliston trusted him marginally more than he trusted any of the Gauleiters. “Send him in, along with some coffee.”
He kept his face blank as Kuhnert was escorted into the room. A serving girl, carrying a tray of hot coffee, appeared a moment later, placing the coffee on the table before bowing and retreating in haste. She was the daughter of one of the grandees, Holliston recalled; she’d been placed in the Reichstag, he suspected, in the hopes she’d catch a senior official’s eye and marry him. There were no Untermensch servants in the Reichstag itself.
I should organise a match for her, he thought, as Kuhnert saluted. Hitler used to do it all the time.
“Minister,” he said, stiffly. “I trust this is urgent?”
“There was a report from the Urals, Mein Führer,” Kuhnert said, bluntly. “A couple of outlying farms have been overrun and burned to the ground. The men on the spot say that all of the registered weapons have been stolen. They don’t know what else might have been taken.”
Karl sucked in his breath. “And the farmers?”
“Dead, Mein Führer,” Kuhnert said. “It was not pleasant.”
“It wouldn’t have been,” Karl said. Slavs were savages. Given a chance, they’d loot, rape and murder from one end of the Reich to the other. “Were all the bodies recovered?”
“We think so,” Kuhnert said. “Unless there was someone there who wasn’t on the registry…”
Karl dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand. The Westerners might complain about having permanent files from birth to death, but Easterners were sensible enough to understand their value. Anyone staying at the farm would have had his presence noted and logged. No, there was no one unaccounted for.
“I’ve heard a great deal of anger,” Kuhnert added. “The mobile reinforcements that should have responded to their cry for help were sent west two weeks ago.”
“And so we lost a farm,” Karl mused. Losing one farm was annoying, but hardly fatal; losing more, particularly in the east, was a serious problem. Giving the bandits a victory — even an easy victory — would encourage them. “Can you calm the locals down?”
“I doubt it, Mein Führer,” Kuhnert said. “They are insistent that forces should be pulled back from the front to confront a more serious threat.”
Karl slapped the table. “The rebels are a serious threat!”
He glared down at his hands. Germany East was just too damned big. If he detached anything less than a full-sized infantry division… he scowled. It would need something bigger than an infantry division to make a real impact on the bandits. And he couldn’t even spare a single division. There was just too much to do in the west.
“If this continues,” Kuhnert said, “I don’t know what they’ll do.”
“Something stupid, perhaps,” Karl said. He had to do something, but what? “Tell them we’ll send reinforcements eastwards as soon as we can.”
“I don’t think they will accept that, Mein Fuehrer,” Kuhnert warned. “They have good reason to be sceptical of our promises.”
“Then make sure they accept it,” Karl snarled. His head was definitely starting to pound. He was trying to save the Reich from those who would destroy it, from those who would give the land back to the Slavs… and he was being badgered by petty details. “We will send them reinforcements as soon as we can.”
He drank his coffee, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to keep him awake. He needed sleep, not… not late nights. And yet, there was just too much to do.
“Tell them that we will do what we can, when we can,” he added, firmly. Himmler had been lucky. He’d never had to cope with a civil war. “And make it clear that we don’t need the distraction.”
“Jawohl, Mein Führer,” Kuhnert said.
Karl watched him go, cursing under his breath. There was far too much he had to do, far too many issues that required his personal attention. And yet, he simply didn’t have the time to handle it all. He had no idea how Hitler or Himmler had coped…
I imagine it was easy, he thought, bitterly. They could trust their subordinates.