“I don’t propose to cut the military budget,” he said, “although we are going to have to make some adjustments over the next two years. I have planners working on the best way to make those adjustments without causing an economic crisis. However, right now, we need to cut support payments.”
“There will be trouble,” Voss predicted.
“Not if we do it carefully,” Holliston said. “Cut the payments for families living within Germany Prime, but offer to keep paying for families who are willing to move to Germany East within five years.”
Hans blinked in surprise. Had Holliston ever supported him? The SS liked the idea of paying mothers to have as many children as possible, even though it was a growing drain on the economy. No matter how he looked at it, cutting the payments was going to be painful. God alone knew how many families would no longer be able to afford their children if their state payments were cancelled. Soldiers, in particular, would be hit hard. They were encouraged to get their wives pregnant every time they went home on leave.
It makes sense, he told himself. Holliston and the SS had been trying to urge more Germans to move to Germany East, despite its bad reputation. They want to use cuts in the payments to encourage immigration.
“We could simply stop paying for new mothers,” Rubarth said, nervously. Economic policy was outside his bailiwick. “The mothers who have been drawing support payments for years need them.”
“It is something we’ll have to do, but it won’t help us with the current problem,” Hans said, producing a paper from his briefcase. “Assuming we manage to cut support payments by fifty percent over the next two months, we should be able to re-stabilise the economy – if, of course, the Americans don’t make any major new deployments. We are already spending far too much money producing new missiles to overwhelm the American ABM system.”
“Which we need,” Voss said. “If the Americans successfully shield themselves against nuclear missiles, they can simply dictate terms to us at will.”
That was true, Hans knew. If the Reich had such an advantage, the Reich Council would not hesitate to use it to force America to disarm and submit to German rule. The Yankees were cowards, certainly when compared to the Reich, but even cowards could pluck up the nerve to fight, if they thought they had an overwhelming advantage. Being able to turn the Reich into a pile of radioactive ashes, without fear of major retaliation, would be enough to convince even a coward to strike. It would be unfortunate for Britain, too close to the Reich to be shielded properly, but he doubted the American planners would care. The Reich wouldn’t give a damn if Vichy France were to be turned into rubble, if it gave the Reich dominance over the entire world.
“So we make the cuts,” he said, out loud. “We do our best to present them to the people as necessary cuts, cuts we have to make.”
“And offer incentives for people to move east,” Holliston added. “There’s plenty of unclaimed land for farmers in Germany East.”
But most of the people who’ll move are not farmers, Hans thought. They don’t want to spend the rest of their lives staring at the back end of a mule.
He pushed the thought aside. For once, he had the cooperation of the SS. That wouldn’t last, but he needed to take advantage of it. No matter how the cuts were spun, it would be impossible to avoid pain. The sooner it was over, the better.
“We can put the question to the Reichstag,” Holliston added. “Let the protesters try to rationalise their opposition after the Reichstag votes in favour.”
“That wouldn’t be hard,” Voss commented. “We haven’t held free elections yet.”
Hans shrugged. A freely-elected Reichstag, dependent on the whim of the population, wouldn’t agree to pass any spending cuts, let alone a cut as deep as cutting support payments to German mothers. Holliston had a point, he had to admit; a democratic nation simply couldn’t make the hard choices that would secure its future, once and for all. Who knew what would have happened if the Americans had joined the British in war against the Reich, back in 1945? The Reich’s control over Europe had been so tenuous, in places, that it might have come apart at the seams, giving the world to the Americans.
No, he thought. This isn’t a decision we can trust to the people.
He smiled, rather thinly. “Shall we vote?”
It was a weakness of civilians, Karl Holliston had often felt, was that they thought in terms of money and power, rather than the racial imperatives that had driven the Reich from the very first day Adolf Hitler had become the ruler of Germany. A civilian would compromise on issues that an SS officer would know could never be compromised. The world was red in tooth and claw; those who failed to be strong, those who failed to dominate, would be dominated themselves. There was no way the Reich could tolerate weakness in its ranks.
And weakness there was, he knew. He’d done nothing to purge the student activists, the female protesters, the unionists… giving them time to stand up and be countered. It didn’t seem to have occurred to any of them that going public, no matter what the laws said was legal now, turned them into marked men. Karl’s agents had been compiling a long list of men and women, ranging from old unionists to students barely old enough to marry, who would be ruthlessly purged once the old order reasserted itself. And it would, he knew. The civilians might delude themselves that the population would accept cuts in their support payments, but Karl knew better. He had no illusions about the leaders of the protest groups, male or female. They wanted power…
…And, like himself, they would do whatever it took to grab hold and keep it for themselves.
He’d played his cards carefully, as much as it galled him not to oppose the civilians in their madcap schemes. Let them think he would support their cuts, at least in Germany Prime; it was, in many ways, a defensible position. God knew Germany East needed a major population boom and encouraging young families to immigrate was a means to that end. But it would also lure the civilians into a false sense of security. They would assume he had no intention of stepping outside the normal rules of political dispute, within the Reich.
But the Reich itself is at risk, he thought, as the vote was taken. Only two junior ministers voted against the cuts, although the military officers looked dubious. They were probably relieved they’d been spared painful budget cuts of their own. And I must do whatever it takes to save it.
Word would spread, long before the official announcement. He’d make sure of it. His agents would even make the cuts seem worse than they actually were, although in truth they were probably painful enough already to cause a major protest in the streets. And then, the SS would be waiting. Blood would flow on the streets of Germany and the Reich would be saved.