She swallowed hard, wondering if anyone would still listen to her, and cleared her throat. “If you’re not wounded, start helping those who are,” she shouted. Thankfully, the BDM had taught basic first aid, even if it had been more focused on helping children than adults. She silently promised herself she’d thank her tutors if she survived the day. “Bandage their wounds… sort out who can be saved!”
Her eyes caught sight of a boy she knew to be a skilled runner. “Get to the nearest hospital,” she ordered, hoping he wasn’t too stunned. None of the students had any real experience with uncontrolled violence. “Tell them we need doctors and ambulances out here now!”
Horst grabbed her arm. “Send someone to the nearest computer station,” he ordered. “We have to spread the word.”
Gudrun stared at him, wildly. “We have spread the word,” she said. “And look what happened!”
“It’s going to get worse,” Horst said. “You know what the SS will do, if the bastards have a chance to rally. The military needs to be warned!”
Herman hurried onto Victory Square with the remainder of the police reinforcements – and stopped in horror at the sight that greeted him. Dead bodies, wounded students and adults… it was like stepping into a war zone. And they were Germans, not Untermenschen. He looked at the soldiers, readying themselves for an assault on the Reichstag, and the bodies of the SS men lying where they’d fallen, and knew civil war had begun. The soldiers wouldn’t have attacked the SS unless they’d stepped well over the line.
“Get in touch with the station,” he ordered. The Captain was nowhere to be seen, unsurprisingly. He probably couldn’t decide which side to take and was hiding, rather than commit himself. “Tell them to send all the medics they can find.”
He caught sight of Gudrun and shivered. His daughter seemed unharmed, but her white shirt was stained with blood and she was organising the students to take care of the wounded. He wanted to drag her away from the scene, yet he knew it was far too late. Gudrun had asserted her independence, no matter what he thought about it. He looked up at the brooding Reichstag – a sniper could easily start raining bullets down on the crowd – and then reminded himself it was time to take a side.
“And warn them to arrest any SS officers in eyesight too,” he added. He glanced up as a helicopter lifted off from the building’s roof and vanished into the distance. Thankfully, either it wasn’t armed or the pilot thought the soldiers had antiaircraft missiles on hand. “It’s the only hope of preventing a civil war.”
Hans was in shock.
He’d been tricked, he saw now, and the hell of it was that he’d practically tricked himself. He had been so grateful for Holliston’s support for the budget cuts that he hadn’t really considered why Holliston had supported him. He’d seen one reason – Holliston did have something to gain from budget cuts – but he hadn’t seen the other. Holliston had deliberately provoked a protest march, which he’d then turned into a massacre.
And even he didn’t expect to see the Berlin Guard turn on the SS, Hans thought. The whole world had been turned upside down.
“He’s gone,” Voss said. The building was in lockdown, but the military security detachments were trying to open a pathway to safety for the Reich Council. “Left his secretary and ran for the helicopter.”
Hans closed his eyes in bitter pain as a low rumble ran through the building. There was no point in trying to escape, not now. The secret passageways led directly to the various ministries dotted around Victory Square, but the mob had the streets under control already, even if they hadn’t stormed the buildings themselves. They’d counted on using the helicopter to escape Berlin, if the Americans launched a surprise attack, and Holliston had beaten them to it. It was impossible to escape the feeling that the SS Reichsführer had intended to cause a riot and leave his comrades to die.
“I managed to get a brief message out to the nearest garrison,” Voss added. “They’ll warn the rest of the Reich about the SS.”
The building shook, again. Hans sighed and sat down, wondering just what would happen when the mutineers burst into the chamber. It wouldn’t be long now.
Kurt had no idea what sort of opposition would await his men in the Reichstag, but there was no time to do more than the most basic planning before knocking down the gates and swarming the building. Several of his men had vanished in the chaos; a number of policemen had offered to bring up the rear, including – he was surprised to see – his own father. Kurt ordered them to be ready to take prisoners, then led the way into the building. There was almost no opposition, save for a pair of SS troopers who were blasted out with thrown grenades after they made a stand. Kurt couldn’t help being glad the murdering bastards he’d killed hadn’t been anything like as determined to hold the line.
“Hands on your heads,” he bellowed, as they cleared the ground floor and made their way up to the next level. “Get the prisoners down to the halls and leave them there, under guard.”
There was no further resistance as they slipped further and further up the building. Kurt couldn’t help being astonished by the sheer opulence of the decorations – including hundreds of artworks he’d only seen in books – and just how quickly the low-level bureaucrats surrendered, when they saw the soldiers. The building was solid enough to ensure that a determined defence could hold it for quite some time, particularly when the intruders had no idea which corridor led where. But he was grateful for the lack of resistance, right up until they broke onto the highest level. A hail of fire greeted the soldiers as they climbed up the stairway.
“Surrender,” Kurt shouted. A handful of grenades would be more than sufficient to clear the way. “Give up now and you won’t be harmed.”
There was a long pause, then someone shouted back. “What about the Reich Council?”
“They will not be harmed either, provided they surrender,” Kurt said. He had no idea if he was authorised to make any such promises – it wasn’t as if they had a command authority – but it would encourage them to surrender without further delay. “Tell them to give up and they will remain unharmed.”
He muttered orders to his men as he waited for a reply. God alone knew what sort of equipment the Reich Council had on hand. They could be calling for help, even now, although the Berlin Guard itself was the closest military unit to the city. Unless, of course, the Waffen-SS had another division on hand. He didn’t think there were any closer than Warsaw, but he hadn’t thought the SS would bring a police unit from Germany East to Berlin either.
“They want to negotiate,” the voice shouted, finally.
Kurt shook his head. It sounded like a delaying tactic to him. “They can surrender now or we’ll force our way into the chamber,” he said. “You have five minutes to decide.”
He braced himself, unsure just what to expect. The Reich Council didn’t seem to have expected trouble, not if they were gathered in the Reichstag rather than observing events from a safe distance. Indeed, if the SS hadn’t opened fire, there probably wouldn’t have been any trouble. Everything he’d seen suggested that the Reich Council had been as surprised as the Berlin Guard… although there was the lingering question of just who’d been in that helicopter.