Or at least not for very long, Horst thought sardonically. A bank would be happy to give a loan to a farmer, if the farmers used their farm as collateral.
It wasn’t a pleasant thought – and it would be worse, he knew, in Berlin, where civilians couldn’t live off the land. Growing one’s own foodstuffs, let alone rearing meat animals, was strictly forbidden within the city. A family of six, with the husband away in the military, would find it very hard to survive if the Mutterkreuz payments were halted. Indeed, there was no way the current system was sustainable without the payments. The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if it was a trick of some kind. But what sort of person would want the population to believe their throats were about to be cut?
“It says here that the Reichstag will be meeting later today to discuss the cuts,” Sven said, breaking into his thoughts. He looked up, sharply. “They’ll… they’ll just approve it, won’t they?”
“They will,” Horst confirmed. The government might have conceded free elections to the Reichstag, but none of those elections had been held – yet. He couldn’t decide if someone was playing games or if they genuinely believed the Reichstag’s blessing would stop the backlash. “All the Reichstag does is approve what the government wants it to approve.”
He looked down at his hands, thinking hard. Word would already be spreading, thanks to the hundreds of computer users – and experts – who were joining the protest movement. He wouldn’t be surprised if the unionists weren’t already being informed – their families would be threatened by the cuts – and it wouldn’t be long before Hilde’s mother found out. She might not need any support payments from the state, but she’d hardly underestimate the threat to the rest of the city’s women. They’d be out on the streets within an hour…
“I’m going to find Gudrun,” he said, rising. “Start spreading the word as far as you can.”
“Jawohl,” Sven said.
Volker Schulze had been expecting the government to do something – anything – about the unions, ever since the government had been forced into a humiliating retreat. He had no illusions. The only way to rise into power – civilian, military or SS – was to have a ruthless drive for power combined with a slavish loyalty to one’s branch. And even if the government had been prepared to let bygones be bygones, the corporate managers wouldn’t let them. The thought of their workers actually standing up to them, resisting their demands and even shutting down the factories, would be too much.
But he’d never expected the government to threaten to cut support payments.
They had to be out of their minds, he thought. The government had been encouraging Germans to have large families since 1944, since the official end of the war. They’d been helping to fund the families too, awarding payments to women who had more than three children. How many families were completely dependent on those payments? Their husbands didn’t bring in enough money to make up the shortfall. They had to be mad…
…Unless they’re deliberately planning to punish the women, he thought. The state had rarely seen women as anything other than mothers, daughters and wives. Indeed, there were only a handful of professions routinely open to women. They must have been horrified when the women went out onto the streets.
“We can’t let them get away with it,” Joachim said. “I have a wife and four appetites to feed.”
Volker nodded in agreement. “Start calling everyone,” he said. “We’re leaving our work and going to the Reichstag.”
Gudrun couldn’t help a flicker of fear as she led the tidal wave of students out of the university. There was strength in numbers, strength in the certainty that hundreds – perhaps thousands – of people were behind her, yet there was also a sickening nervousness that made her want to throw up. Horst – and her father – had told her, in great detail, what would happen if the SS decided, truly decided, to crush the students. Machine gun bullets, her father had said, would go through flesh like hot knives through butter. Part of Gudrun almost wished she’d let her father beat her into submission, but then she looked at the students and knew she couldn’t let them down. It might have been a mistake to stand up and declare herself their leader, it might have painted a target on her backside, but now she’d done it she was committed.
“The Reichstag believes we will accept its judgement,” she’d said, when she’d assembled the students. Most of the tutors had made themselves scarce; the SS spies – the known spies, at least – had been isolated. “We have to show them that we will not tamely accept their rulings any longer.”
She kept walking forward, feeling her heartbeat starting to pound as she led the way towards Victory Square. They’d spread the leaflets there – it felt as through she’d done that years ago – but now, now she was going there openly, with thousands of others at her back. Whatever happened, she promised herself silently, there would be no more hiding. The state would no longer be able to hide its crimes under a facade of respectability.
“No cuts,” she shouted. “No cuts!”
The students took up the chant. More and more people – workers, women, even ordinary civilians – were flowing out of their homes and joining the march. Gudrun wished she’d thought of producing a handful of banners, but it hadn’t occurred to her before the march had begun. Horst had advised her not to plan a march and she’d listened to him. She caught sight of a handful of policemen, staring in horror, and winced inwardly. Was her father watching her as she marched towards Victory Square?
We need some better organisation, she thought, as the crowd swelled still further. She’d wanted to set up a network of student leaders, and march stewards, but Horst had warned her that the regime would have no trouble targeting them. Better to avoid having many known leaders, he’d said. We have to put women and children to the front.
She glanced to the left as Horst appeared beside her. He had to shout to be heard over the din. “What do we do when we reach the Reichstag?”
“March in circles,” Gudrun shouted back. There were armed SS guards defending the colossal building. They’d shoot, she was sure, if the marchers tried to break into the Reichstag itself. “March and shout ourselves hoarse.”
Horst didn’t look happy, but he held his tongue.
“There are thousands of people on the streets,” a frantic messenger reported. “They’re advancing on the Reichstag!”
“Call for police reinforcements,” Voss suggested. “And the Berlin Guard!”
Karl smirked inwardly as the Reich Council started to panic, hastily issuing orders and countermanding them seconds later. By his calculations, the marchers would be at the Reichstag within twenty minutes at most, although the growing stream of newcomers would slow them down. No one had any real experience with unplanned protests in the Reich, not when the only permitted mass movements were parades and ceremonial marches. Some of the students would probably trip, fall and be crushed below the marching feet before they had a chance to escape.