Christopher Nuttall - Chosen of the Valkyries

He smiled at the thought as he strolled over to the table, nodding to the guards positioned against the walls. The Reichstag was guarded by heavily-armed soldiers these days, men drawn from the toughest regiments in the Heer . After the SS had dropped an assault force into the building and done their best to destroy the provisional government before it had formed, he wasn’t inclined to take chances. Some of the councillors had insisted that the men posed a security risk, but they hadn’t dared say it very loudly. They knew, all too well, that most of them would be dead if the Berlin Guard hadn’t switched sides.

“Let us begin,” he said, sitting down and resting his elbows on the table. He had no time for elaborate formalities. “Field Marshal. What is our current state of readiness?”

Field Marshal Gunter Voss leaned forward. He’d taken up the post of Head of OKW – the uniformed head of the military – after Field Marshal Justus Stoffregen had resigned, citing a refusal to fight his fellow Germans. Volker had no idea if Stoffregen genuinely felt that way – or if the SS had somehow brought pressure to bear on him – but some of his advisors insisted that losing Stoffregen wasn’t a bad thing. Voss was almost certainly high on the list of individuals the SS intended to purge, if they ever recovered Berlin. He’d opposed Holliston far too often.

“Better than I’d feared, but worse than I’d hoped,” Voss said, bluntly. “Much of our heavy armour was placed near the beaches, for fear of a British invasion. We’re starting to ship it back to the east now, but it’s going to take time before we have the divisions formed up and ready to go to war. The resignations and defections haven’t helped either. Right now, we barely have two scratch divisions digging in along the border with Germany East and two more held in reserve.”

He smiled, rather tightly. “We are recruiting as fast as we can, sir, and most of our recruits have some military experience, but it will still take weeks – if not months – before they’re ready for deployment. Until then, we will be committed to a mobile defence of the eastern border, slowing the SS down until we are ready to drive them back.”

Volker nodded. “And the men in South Africa?”

“Getting them back is going to be a nightmare, even if we trusted them,” Voss said. “Much of our heavy-lift capability was deployed to the south, which made them easy targets for American-designed missiles. And the South Africans aren’t particularly keen to see them go.”

“Too bad,” Volker said, tiredly.

He shook his head. His son had been wounded in South Africa. He certainly had no love for the country. But even without that, he knew there was no way the Reich should have supported South Africa. Fighting to preserve white civilisation was one thing, but South Africa was right on the end of a very long logistics chain. Better to ship the South Africans to Germany East and invite them to blend in with the population. It wasn’t as if Germany East was short of territory.

“Most commanding officers in South Africa have secured their bases, but there’s little else they can do,” Voss added. “A handful of officers have refused to answer my calls. I think we have to assume they’re on the other side.”

“Understood,” Volker said. The Wehrmacht was not used to civil wars. Soldiers fought for the Reich , not for factions within Germany. Now, with the country torn in two, everyone in uniform had to ask themselves where their loyalties lay. And not everyone was willing to fight for the provisional government. “Start making preparations to get the others home.”

“Of course, sir,” Voss said.

And hope to hell the French don’t decide to play games , Volker thought, privately. Vichy France had been restless for decades, before the Reich Council had collapsed. Now, the French might try to take advantage of the Reich’s troubles to reclaim their independence and recover the territory they’d lost. If they decide to shut down the airfields between South Africa and the Reich, getting those troops home will be impossible .

He shook his head – Gudrun had been dispatched on a diplomatic mission to France, in hopes of preventing the French from trying to take advantage of the chaos – and met Voss’s eyes. “How are our chances?”

“Mixed, sir,” Voss said. “The Waffen-SS has the armour and supporting elements they need to punch through our defence lines, even if they don’t have covert supporters within our ranks. I believe we will see a major offensive within two weeks, perhaps less. They have to know that matters will become a great deal harder if they give us time to mobilise. On the other hand, we can lure them into fighting grounds where their advantages are strongly reduced – urban conflict in Berlin, in particular.”

Volker winced. He was no stranger to combat. Military operations in built-up terrain – street-to-street fighting – were always nightmarish. But he knew Voss was right. The SS – and Holliston in particular – would want to recover Berlin as quickly as possible. Letting them overextend themselves, while gathering the forces necessary to cut their supply lines and crushing their advance elements… Holliston was many things, but he was no Adolf Hitler. The first and greatest Führer would never have made such a deadly mistake.

“Very well,” he said. “Luther? How are they placed for an attack on Berlin?”

Luther Stresemann, Head of the Economic Intelligence Service, frowned. “Holliston has reshaped his… cabinet , sir,” he said, “so many of our original sources within the SS have been reshuffled out of power. I don’t believe that was intentional – they still appear to be alive – but it makes it harder for us to get a window into their deliberations. However, many of our lower-level sources are still in play.”

He paused. “All their reports indicate that Holliston has called up both Category A and Category B reservists, both Heer and SS,” he continued. “As you know, the reservists in Germany East have often been called up at the drop of a hat, so we don’t anticipate it taking very long for them to brush up on their tactics and return to their units. However… they will have problems securing many of the settlements if they call away their defenders. We believe that Untermenschen attacks on German settlements will increase rapidly, as the Untermenschen realise that there are fewer defenders in place.”

Volker frowned. “Is that likely to cause Holliston problems?”

“Not immediately,” Stresemann said. “In the long run, the reservists are unlikely to be pleased at marching away from their homes, with the Untermenschen ready to attack, but right now Holliston has all the tools he needs to render their opinions immaterial.”

“That was what the old council thought,” Voss pointed out, dryly.

“The old council was also worried about the knock-on effects of heavy repression,” Finance Minister Hans Krueger countered. “I doubt Holliston gives much of a damn about the side effects.”

Volker tapped the table before Krueger and Voss could start bickering. “How long can Germany East survive, economically?”

“It depends on what you mean by survive , sir,” Krueger said, bluntly. “My staff have run the figures but too much depends on factors that are unfortunately unpredictable. Germany East is perfectly capable of feeding itself, and of supplying its own wants in small-arms ammunition, but it doesn’t have many factories capable of producing tanks, railway locomotives and heavy machinery. However, they do have massive stockpiles of everything they need for war. It may take years before they drain their stocks dry.”