Derek Pennington: The German Peace

The Aviation Minister, Kesselring, had spotted James’ and Jamie’s names on the guest list. He sought them out after the demonstration flight was over. He was well aware of the contribution James had made to the success of the Strarflight, and before that, to the Junkers JU52 civil programme. He expected the same effort would be put into the Komet.

Jamie he knew from various diplomatic parties they’d both attended while Jamie had been the US military attaché.

James introduced Kesselring to O’Donnell. They had been speaking for ten minutes when Professor Tank joined them. This was more to O’Donnell’s taste. No need to be diplomatic. He quizzed the Professor on the future for the Komet.

Here it was! Straight from the horse’s mouth. Tank spent ten minutes telling O’Donnell about the development possibilities. He had always had his eye on the future when designing the Komet. He believed the aircraft and its variants could be produced for at least the next fifteen years. During that time it could be stretched and widened to accommodate more passengers or freight as the market demanded. And its performance upgraded. He saw the final passenger version carrying perhaps as many as two hundred and twenty people.

Tank and Kesselring left a very thoughtful three visitors as they went to mingle further.

That night, in the bar of their hotel, James and the two Americans threw all sorts of ideas at each other. One thing they all agreed on. Provided no technical problems were discovered, the Komet was going to be an enormous commercial success. They were going to exploit this!

Admiral Darlan had received the news from de Gaulle that the Vietnamese communist rebels under Ho Chi Min had finally been eliminated. They had been trapped and shot to pieces by combined units of the French and Vietnamese armies, at some obscure place called Dien Bien Phu. Ho Chi Minh himself had chosen an ignominious death to ignominious capture. ‘ His choice’, de Gaulle thought in dismissal. The country was now safe from communism. If not from itself !

The instant the communist threat had disappeared, De Gaulle had ordered all French military advisors in the country to return home. The Indochina countries must look after themselves. He was anxious to avoid a request from the country’s ruler for military support of their inefficient government. No way!

After his sound handling of the dismantling of the colonial empire, Admiral Darlan had publicly commended de Gaulle for his skill in that difficult and complicated matter. De Gaulle had hoped that Darlan, who was now sixty six years old, would take this opportunity to nominate him as his successor, or at least make him Deputy President. This had not happened and de Gaulle was seething. He was no less ambitious than he always had been.

A week after he heard of the communist defeat in Viet Nam, Darlan had been informed by the Germans that their intelligence operatives had learned that the French Minister of Colonies, de Gaulle, was plotting. Many of his accomplices had also been named by them. De Gaulle was going to lead a coup to ‘re-establish democracy in France’.

With himself as President, of course!

“Damn all politicians and ambitious Generals,” Darlan said to himself in the privacy of his office. He could perhaps understand de Gaulle to some extent, if France was floundering in a sea of anarchy and social unrest. But the country had never been so peaceful or prosperous. Neither did it have any possible external threats.

The angry Admiral applied his mind to how to deal with this problem.

In the end it was astonishingly simple. Perhaps his years as a politician made him sometimes overlook the obvious.

He simply had de Gaulle arrested for treason! The man was the most unpopular politician in France following his dismantling of the French Empire. And firm proof of his intended coup was in Darlan’s possession, thanks to German intelligence. Let the law take its course!

In the meantime he would abolish the post of Minister for Colonies. France no longer had any.

Today was the first full meeting of the Governing Council since the summer recess, although there had been continuous mini-meetings throughout the summer.

The first to speak, as always, was the Foreign Minister.

“I wish to report on the arms limitation issue. Following a few initial misunderstandings and communication difficulties with the Soviets, armament production inspections have settled down into a set pattern. The Soviet inspectors were granted access to all production facilities throughout the European Alliance. In the beginning they attempted to extend this to include research and military training bases. It was relatively easy to prove that these were not manufacturing points, after which, the Soviets desisted from requesting access. They have officially pronounced themselves satisfied that we are meeting our undertakings.

Alliance inspectors in the Soviet Union in the beginning met with considerable obstructionism and reluctant co-operation. I think it was just ingrained Soviet thinking, and years of conditioning by Stalin’s secret police. Anyway, eventually everything worked out.

The size of both the Soviet and the Alliance inspectorate teams have now been substantially reduced. Each country, through a small team of permanent inspectors, will continue monitoring, and at all times will be able to request inspection of any new site where they believe weapons are being produced.

All parties accept that at certain periods some factories may need to increase production for arms exports. A suitable mechanism for this has been agreed upon.

All members of the Alliance, and the Soviet Union, have now confirmed that we have a workable arms limitation strategy. Accordingly, I now propose that we ratify the agreement.”

This important development between ‘the west’ and the Soviet Union would have been unthinkable while Stalin was alive. Von Altendorf earnestly hoped that the east-west thaw would continue.

The Germans and Soviets had been unable to draw the Chinese and Japanese into the arms limitation treaty. The two Far East powers still remained too suspicious of each other, as well as having little trust in the Soviet Union. It was hoped that time would change this attitude.

The United States, perhaps with a President still smarting from the rebuff of the UN organisation by Europe, had also declined to enter into any kind of arms limitation agreement. They had, however, indicated that they would watch developments and be guided by them in the future. ‘ A message somewhat similar to that which the Germany gave the US about the United Nations.’ von Altendorf thought with a rueful smile.

Von Altendorf had another interesting announcement. “There was a surprise development at the Politburo meeting in Moscow last week. In an open meeting, Khrushchev criticised Stalin for his terror purges! Would you believe it? Are we seeing the beginning of enlightened rule in Russia? I sincerely hope so.

Another item of interest is the impending trial of Charles de Gaulle for treason, in France. It seems that there is little sympathy for him from any quarter. His insufferability has caught up with him. Apparently the state will not seek the death penalty, or even a long prison term. But banishment to one of their overseas island territories will almost certainly be part of his sentence.”

The Aviation Minister waxed eloquently in his praise of the Kaiseradler, or Canberra, as the British called it. The test pilots reported it as a vice free, sweet aircraft to fly. It had already flown faster and higher than any other aircraft. Even the Americans, needing to replace their existing obsolete light bombers, realised that no future home produced aircraft designs could get close to what the Anglo-German aircraft could already offer. They wanted four hundred of them, but wished to build them in America under licence.