Stormfuhrer (18 page)

“
How could the West to do anything more than they are already doing if there were to be a war between Germany and Russia?  Don’t you think that it would be in their best interest to sit back and watch us tear each other to pieces? They distrust the Russians maybe even more than they distrust us, despite the fact of our having annexed most of their neighbors.  If anything, our attacking Russia would give them reason to pause the war and watch us bloody each other—and then come and finish off the winner.”

“
Exactly why now would be the opportune time, in our Leader’s eyes, to attack the Russians.  It might slow down the British and Americans.”

“
Or it might encourage the US to finally come to the aid of Britain and together invade Germany through France and create a true western front while all of our resources are aimed against Russia.  You see, the Fuhrer would never take such a risk.”  Goebbels lied.  Of course, he knew Krafft was perfectly correct.  Hitler had already put the ultimately suicidal plan in motion.  He also knew that it would be nearly impossible for him to change the Leader's mind.

Farash had had enough of Goebbels’ duplicity.  He knew from history that Goebbels was lying through his teeth.  “It will be called War Directive 21.”

The Reichsminister stood up.  “How did you hear that?  Who have you been talking to?”

“
No one.  How do you still doubt my powers of insight?”  Farash paused, pretending to be utterly offended, and then proceeded.  “You’ve got to convince the Fuhrer that
if
he must go on with this suicidal plan, he can’t split up the army to do so.  That will . . . that
would
result in complete failure.  I know that he intends to drive the northern army group into Leningrad, the central group into Moscow, and the southern group toward the Black Sea to take the oil fields.

“
Instead, the three million men that he sends must all drive immediately into Moscow to take out Stalin and the central government.  Otherwise, dividing the army into three army groups will slow the attack on Moscow and the Russian winter will do the rest.  A
successful
plan would involve the creation of a permanent alliance with the USSR and launch operation Sea Lion against Britain as originally planned.”

The thin-suited Reichsminister again appeared stunned at the man's array of intimate knowledge.  Only a handful of men at the top knew about either plan and even fewer knew specifics to
this
degree.  There was more detail implicit in Krafft’s schemes than even he himself was privy to.  He could check into the validity of these additional bits of information, but he knew already that they would be verified.

Goebbels sat back into his chair.  He tapped his desk and tried to smile.  Farash knew what was probably going on in his mind.  Were military officers intentionally feeding this Swiss
seer a list of command strategies in order to trip him up?  Convincing him to reproduce and then discredit the ideas in the audience of the Fuhrer?  He’d be hanged for insolence.

Farash knew that this was the moment.  If he were to convince one of Hitler’s most trusted voices that an Eastern front would be inevitable chaos for Germany, it would be now.

“Magda Goebbels will poison your children.”

“
What did you just say?”

Farash paused.  “If we attack Russia, then in the last days of the war, in the Fuhrer's bunker, Your wife will give your six children a drink that will make them sleep.  While they are asleep, she will crack cyanide tablets into each of their mouths.  Afterward, she’ll play cards.  You will know about it and won’t do a thing to stop her.  By then you’ll know it’s over. 
That’s
the chaos I’m talking about!”

Goebbels was visibly shaken.  “Why would she . . .”

“The Russians will surround Berlin in the spring of 1945.  Eisenhower will allow the Russians to enter Berlin first, letting them do their will on the women and children of Berlin.  Many will commit suicide, including yourself and your family.  In your eyes and in the eyes of your wife, your children would be better off dead.”

“
If that were the case, we’d be nowhere near Berlin.  We have a far more secure . . .”

“
. . . bunker near Berchesgaden.  But Magda will want to be by her Fuhrer until the very end.  She will insist on it.  And he will want to make his last stand in Berlin.  She’s his most ardent supporter.  Why do you think all your children’s names start with ‘H’?”

“
You take too many liberties, Mr. Krafft,” he said in almost a whisper.

Krafft frowned and returned his gaze.  “I can speak to the Fuhrer directly, leaving you out of every part if it, if you like.”

Goebbels began to smile in earnest.  This relieved Farash and he returned the smile and nodded just as Goebbels reached over to his phone and said a few low words into the receiver.  An SS man came in within a few seconds and stood behind Krafft.  Farash was relieved.  He would be escorted to the New Chancellery given a
real
audience with the Fuhrer!   He knew far more than Goebbels about the chain of events about to take place.  Goebbels possessed channels of information between members of the Reich Cabinet, most of whom didn’t like him very much.  But Krafft had an excellent knowledge of history.   Finally, Farash would have his chance to rise to a position of power even above that of Goebbels, perhaps even become Deputy Fuhrer. 

Goebbels, still smiling, shook his head, reached into a side desk drawer and produced a black pistol and aimed it at Krafft’s chest.

Farash’s helmet plunged into a black silence.

CHAPTER 11

June 2025

Farash lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.  The school year was over.  Despite his wife’s words of concern he rarely ate anything, slept most of the time and rarely removed the helmet, lying in a sort of half-conscious state.

He was an adviser to the Reichsminister of Propaganda, who had shot him, probably killing Krafft, his avatar.  He wore the helmet even when he slept, lying on the little bed in the spare room, subconsciously tuned into any faint sound, any small glimpse of change appearing on the wide band of screen that wrapped almost from ear to ear outside his closed eyelids. 

Amala came into the room every day to bring him his home-cooked meals, aromatic and very spicy, often retrieving the untouched plate hours later.  She loved her husband and somehow understood his addiction.  She, found barely a teen by a decade-older Farhat Farash while still an orphan on the streets of New Delhi, was once addicted to the nicotine-like pull of betel quid, which had permanently stained some of her teeth.  Farash usually met her with a smile and a hug--though not so much recently.

She knew that it was simply an addiction to his work, his “research,” his quest to create an ideal mix of technology and teaching, as he had put it.  He worked hard to be the best teacher at his campus.  Whatever had driven her husband from her for days on end, it was something that he needed.  And if he needed it, she would support him in his pursuit of it.  She still wore the traditional dress of the Indian wife and would forever be his loyal Amala.  He would come out of this.  He would be the man he always had been, better, for all long journeys bring but a greater understanding of oneself.

Farash lay in the dark within the inner darkness of the helmet.  There were several wires that connected the helmet to the Raven computing module, the gray brick in the shoebox.  Even though, at night, the space outside his helmet was plunged in total darkness, and even though the wide screen in his helmet was blank, it had begun to radiate a faint glow at times over the last few days.  At least that was something.

He dreamed always, whether awake or asleep, of becoming the ruler of Germany, and ultimately the world.  Isn’t that what the game was about?  And then it would be over.  His character was perhaps not dead but merely in a coma.  He would awaken.

Karl continued reading the worn pages of handwritten journal.

July 1941

I haven't seen much of Helmut and Greta.  Savina thinks it best if I go out and help out with the chores in the early morning and after dark, but not to show my face for a while.  They leave baskets of bread and cheese and fresh-picked fruit on the doorstep to our little cellar.  I mostly fetch the water and bring wood for all of us, leaving a stack for the old couple by the front door.

There's no news on Germany's attack on Russia.  No one speaking on the radio talks as if the event ever took place.  But it
did
happen--late last month.  Is Goebbels' propaganda machine so effective that it can even disguise a war on Germany’s eastern front?

August 1941

The old couple never came out to greet us as we left but had given us some clothes and food, interacting solely through Savina.  She said that they don't hold any ill will toward me but wanted us to move on when we could.  I saw them through a window of their cottage as we trekked our way east.  They seemed sad.  I wanted to talk to them, but Savina thought it wouldn’t be a good idea.  As the curtain fell, I want so much to make it up to them.  They don’t know it, but I’m making it up to them now--by getting as far away from them as possible.

After about a week of walking, mostly through mountain trails, Savina and I spotted a little house by a creek.  It was almost invisible under the surrounding trees and sat between close hills, seemingly enfolded forever in shade.  It was beautiful.  I knocked, expecting it to be abandoned or at least unused according to the look of it, yet an old woman answered the door.  She was a tiny thing, surrounded by the friendliest cats, mewing and begging affection, which she regularly gave.  I offered to chop wood for lodging, and she, almost blind but able to see that we were a couple, offered lodging without the wood.  She had spare rooms upstairs.  I went out to chop the wood anyway, found an ax in her old shed and sharpened it on a whetstone.

Her son, who had been taking care of her, has been sent to France as a soldier.  She receives letters from him weekly.  She has no one else, mainly surviving off the milk from a small flock of goats, eggs from her chickens, and fruit--cherries and pears--from some of the overhanging trees surrounding the little house.

We told her that we were making our way to Poland, gradually, wanting to settle there once the war was over.  Until then, the plan, at least so far, was to push our way into Austria and live among the mountain forests, waiting the few years it would take for the genocidal arm of Nazi Germany lying over Europe to crack under the stress of two fronts.  Not expressed in these words, of course.  She informed us that we were indeed already in Austria, just south of where the borders of Austria, Germany, and Czechoslovakia meet.  She was also curious about the “war” in Poland.  “There hasn’t been a war in Poland since 1939,” she said.  “And it only lasted a few weeks.  But I could be mistaken.  I don’t get much news, you know.  You say two fronts?”

“Yes, well not much of one in the West.  But Germany is fighting Russia in the East . . . “

She was now indeed confused, having heard nothing about a war between Germany and Russia.  She was under the impression that they were soon to be allies.  She has indeed no idea what is happening in the world.  I envy her years of blissful isolation.

November 1941

We are earning our keep by doing the chores the old woman, Sara, has been unable to perform.  Her kindness and sweet temperament make me loath to leave this place, but no matter where we stay, there is the potential of bringing harm on those sheltering us.  We tell her this freely while leaving out the details.  She is indifferent to such things, she says, and wants us to live with her for as long as we feel the need--and that we are to call her “Oma.”

Oma owns a radio that she has never used.  It had been a gift of her brother, now deceased; she produced it from a corner of her attic.  It is a small, Polish "Detefon" model of crystal radio made in the 1930s.  I had my doubts that out here anything could be picked up; however, I've happily been able to pick up news from both Passau, Germany and also a Czech station in Casky Krumlov--which Savina is partially able to interpret.  Neither generates absolutely trustworthy news, but by comparing the two, I can get an idea of the general state of the war.  Oma owns neither a phone nor a single electrical device--having no electricity running to her little cottage--so a crystal radio was the perfect find though it's only audible through a small earpiece.

Indeed, there is no war between Germany and Russia that I can gather from the radio programs I’ve been able to pick up on the small device.  In fact, Russia and Germany are supposedly in the midst of signing an alliance.  My head aches with wondering about this bit of historical misrepresentation though perhaps the game simply allows for multiple historical outcomes.  That’s the only possible explanation.

December 1941

Surprisingly, there is no word on the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  No word regarding the American entrance into the war--and it's already late December!  Also, Germany and Russia are now allies!  Weirdly, Barbarossa never happened.  There is only one front in this game--the western front, which Germany is having no problem controlling.  They have taken all of France and Spain.  There’s even mention of German troops in Switzerland.  Germany and Russia have apparently divided the Eastern European countries amongst themselves, as they did with Poland, and are engaged in joint efforts to root out rebel factions in Finland and Sweden.

January 1942

Germany is no longer being bombed by Britain.  The British attempted to slow Germany's advance by repeatedly bombing Hamburg, Hannover, and a few of the smaller factory cities in the North.  Since the middle of last year, Berlin has only been bombed a few times.  The radio information suggests that Germany is leveling London and that the Axis powers have conquered parts of Scotland through the use of Russian ships and German U-Boats.  The makers of the Game are truly getting it all wrong.

The radio continues to repeat wild stories about the war.  Supposedly, the US has declared war on Russia after its invasion of Alaska.  It is bolstering its forces in the Northwest and has nothing now to send to the British.  All America seems to be doing is protecting itself against further invasion at both coasts.  Japan has taken all of China and there is still no mention of Pearl Harbor.

None of this makes any sense. 

March 1942

We said goodbye to the kind old woman and set off again, this time for Poland.  With no money, we are following the railroad, hoping for empty boxcars to jump into along the way.  Oma offered me the radio, which I accepted gratefully, she claiming to have no use for it.

Some days later, while Savina was climbing into a cattle car, she scraped her leg on the metal platform.  It bled profusely.  We sat in the corner of the car and I nursed the leg with cloth ripped from the inner lining of my jacket.  She looked at me, her eyes dark and full.  Even after the camp, there is an innocence there that she has somehow retained, some part of her soul left untouched by the clawing hell of that place.

She winced with pain as the storm and loud clanging of tracks created a furious caterwaul of noise that enveloped us in the shaking metal cage.  Amid that din and the stench of the empty cattle car there were long rows of small openings on either side in the metal frame.  It began to rain.  The lightning illuminated it all, and it all seemed so surreal, so operatic, like a dark piece of hopeless tragedy sung into the indifferent night.  There was a moment of the utmost tenderness between us as we sat there shivering in the long, perforated cattle car. 

She was shaking, and for a moment turned and released the contents of her stomach through an opening in the wooden floor.  So human.  So the central joy of my existence.  She returned to me and pressed her head back against my chest.  I stroked her hair, moving it away from her face as I did so, with the swirling eddies of the train’s moving winds throwing all chaos into the vibrating spaces.

“
Klung-klung.  Klung-klung,” went the metal wheels over endless sections of track.  She held me out of, what, human need?  To stabilize herself against the rocking of the cattle car?  Against the cold and dark and emptiness of the eddying winds?  Savina has become my sustaining principle, and though I might be nothing more to her than a warm place of temporary refuge, I will take what I can get to be near her.

I was there!  I felt and saw, smelled and breathed the air of that car.  I breathed in the natural perfume of her skin, the warm tones in that loud, dark, rocking place.  My love for her is now limitless.  I felt so strong there, comforted in knowing that we were exactly where we should be, wielding a power beyond death in this holy abyss.  She made it a home, this sheltering clang of movement, by simply being there.  And were she not here with me, I would be a mere thing, tossed around in an empty cage of stench and fear and noise.

She looked into my eyes at one point, weakening with every moment.  “Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“
I think you know.”  That was my answer.

She smiled and pressed her head against my chest, falling asleep despite the noise.  I suspected sepsis in her bloodstream or some infection that might at some later time rob me and the orchestrated chaos of this world of its one bright, perfect note.

April 1942

We are camped out under an isolated bridge that carries the tracks over an embankment.  Savina is looking at me.  “There’s no reason for you to go to Poland.  Poland could be your grave, especially when the Russians own it completely.  From what you've told me, they’ll skin Germans there,” she says.

"From what I'm now realizing,” I reply, “it's one of the safest places on earth.  It has already been conquered by an alliance of world powers that were supposed to be at war with one another.  It’s no haven, but at least there's no fighting there.  Probably no Jews there either, at least not in the German sector.  This is why we need to cross into the Russian-occupied area of Poland.  We need to keep going East."

Today, I heard several interesting pieces of news through the crystal radio.  There is to be the creation of a "Judenland" in Africa.  The Germans have conquered Eastern Africa and set up the island of Madagascar as the New Jewish State.  All the Jews of European countries under German occupation were being transferred there--at least all that had managed to survive the camps until the decision to relocate them to a new homeland, against their will, had been reached.  I’m hoping that Madagascar will be the new home of the millions of Jews that would have otherwise been gassed or shot.  They are going to be free to build their own society on this lush island, according to the Czech broadcaster.  I wonder whether it is not all just a ruse, another Theresienstadt for the world stage.