His buzzer rang. “Herr Reichsführer, Obergruppenfuehrer Felix Kortig is here,” his secretary said. “Shall I send him in?”
“Yes, please,” Karl said. Maria had been with him ever since he’d been promoted into high office, her status rising with his. If she had any interests outside the office, he’d never seen them. He could be rude to anyone else, but not her. “And hold all calls until I’ve finished with him.”
He looked up as the door opened, revealing a blonde-haired man wearing a black uniform and carrying a pistol at his belt. Karl couldn’t avoid a flicker of envy as Obergruppenfuehrer Felix Kortig strode forward and snapped out a precise salute. Kortig might be an Obergruppenfuehrer, but he was still jumping out of planes with the young bucks, while Karl himself was stuck in an office, playing political games with the civilians and the military.
“Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said. “Heil Bormann!”
“Heil Bormann,” Karl echoed. “You may speak freely – and relax.”
Kortig relaxed, minimally. “Jawohl, Herr Reichsführer,” he said. “You wished to speak with me?”
“Yes,” Karl said. He tapped the papers on his desk. “I trust you have had an opportunity to study the proposals for Operation Headshot?”
“I have,” Kortig said. “They’re unworkable.”
Karl blinked in surprise, despite himself. Very few people would tell the Reichsführer-SS that one of his pet concepts was unworkable, which might explain why Himmler had been able to waste so many resources on his occult research. Sending teams of dedicated researchers to Tibet, even in the aftermath of the war, hadn’t been too costly, but transporting ancient artefacts all the way back to Germany had proved a major strain. The rest of the Reich hadn’t been too pleased at the prospect of a diplomatic incident with China, even if the Chinese had been fighting a civil war at the time.
He pushed the thought aside, angrily. “Unworkable?”
“Yes, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said.
Karl bit down on his anger with an effort. “Otto Skorzeny plotted to jump into London in 1950 and slaughter the British Government,” he said. “Wouldn’t that have been a more challenging operation?”
“The operation was planned in the context of an outright invasion,” Kortig pointed out, smoothly. “I have seen those plans, Herr Reichsführer; Skorzeny intended to jump into Westminster, kill as many government ministers as he could find and then escape into the streets of London. Given the lack of extraction plans, I suspect Skorzeny believed the whole operation to be a suicide mission. The best the commandos could reasonably hope for was to go to ground in London and wait for the invasion force to seize the city.”
He tapped the map, sharply. “It was never envisaged, at the time the plan was drawn up, that the British would be our allies, nor that we would be trying to put a friendly government into Westminster. The understanding was that they were our enemies and their country would be ruled with an iron hand.”
Karl nodded, once. Britain had been – and still was – the Reich’s most determined enemy, one protected by a body of water that might as well have been a castle moat. Hitler had shied away from trying to launch an offensive across the English Channel, when the British had been at their weakest; in 1950, with American forces based in Britain, an invasion would have been a very chancy affair indeed. And then the British had developed their own nuclear weapons and plans for a later invasion had been abandoned. Taking London would have been pointless if Berlin had been thrown into the fire.
“Pretoria is a different case, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said, his finger tracing positions on the map. “Their government is scattered, to reduce the risk of being decapitated by a suicide bomber, and we have been unable to obtain solid information on who is where at any one time. In addition, the South African troops protecting Pretoria are experienced battle-hardened veterans, men who are well used to coping with surprise attacks and driving back the attackers before they can do major damage…”
“Our stormtroopers are far better trained than black-assed terrorists,” Karl said, icily.
“It won’t matter,” Kortig said. “At best, we may eliminate one or two senior government ministers, but I couldn’t guarantee we would get them all. The South Africans would know we’d effectively declared war on them. These are not Italians, Herr Reichsführer; the South Africans will strike back at our own forces within their country. Our alliance with them will be at an end. The only people who will gain from the whole affair will be the blacks, who will no doubt sit back and watch as the whites destroy each other.”
He shook his head. “South Africa is not a country that can be easily bullied, Herr Reichsführer,” he said. “Operation Headshot is a disaster waiting to happen.”
Karl gritted his teeth. He’d asked for the truth, hadn’t he? And Kortig was an experienced officer with a string of successes to his name. If he believed the operation was impossible, he was probably right. And yet… the Reich needed to win in South Africa. They didn’t dare lose.
“It’s unlikely the Reichstag will agree to commit additional troops to South Africa,” he said, grimly. “Do we have any other way to achieve victory?”
“Probably not,” Kortig said, after a moment. “Cutting off the supply lines from America would help, Herr Reichsführer, but the Yankees aren’t the sole problem. The blacks know they’re doomed if they surrender. Fighting is the only logical choice.”
“They’re black,” Karl protested.
“So were the Ethiopians,” Kortig reminded him. “Just how badly did they manhandle the Italians?”
Karl grimaced. Ethiopia had nearly defeated the Italian invasion in 1935, a humiliation that had badly weakened Mussolini’s government. The British had liberated Ethiopia in 1941, then – when Ethiopia had been returned to Italy by the terms of the peace treaty – left the Ethiopians with a considerable stockpile of weapons. It had taken the Italians twenty years to hammer Ethiopia into some semblance of order and large parts of the country were still restless.
“They still lost,” he said, finally.
“And we may yet win in South Africa,” Kortig said. “However, betraying our allies in the middle of a war will only lead to chaos.”
Karl glowered. “Is there anything else we can do?”
“Find a way to stiffen their spine,” Kortig said. “It isn’t as if the apartheid government has anywhere to go.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Karl said. “Are you readying yourself to return to the war?”
“Yes, Herr Reichsführer,” Kortig said. “However, I do have some concerns about the treatment of wounded – and the dead.”
Karl cursed under his breath. South Africa had been meant to be a quick victory. The German troops would reinforce South Africa’s, the blacks would be ruthlessly crushed and there would be a victory parade through Berlin to show that the Reich still had teeth. Instead, thousands of soldiers were dead or wounded and there was very little to show for it. For once, he was in total agreement with Hans Krueger. They didn’t dare tell the Reich that so many fine young men had been killed or brutally maimed for nothing.