Harry Turtledove - In the Balance

Through his interpreter, Adolf Hitler said, “Good day, Herr Foreign Commissar. I hope you slept well? Come in, come in; we have much of which to speak.”

“Thank you, Chancellor.” Vyacheslav Molotov followed Hitler into the small living room which had been part of the German leader’s Berchtesgaden retreat before that was incorporated into the grander Berghof surrounding it.

Molotov supposed being ushered into Hitler’s sanctum sanctorum was an honor. if so, he would willingly have forgone it. Everything in the room screamed petit-bourgeois at him: the overstuffed furniture with its old-German look, the rubber plants, the cactus-good heavens, the place even had a brass canary cage! Stalin would laugh when he heard about that.

Strewn here and there on the chairs and couches were embroidered pillows, most of them decorated with swastikas. Swastika-bedizened knickknacks crowded tables. Even Hitler looked embarrassed at their profusion. “I know they aren’t what you’d call lovely,” he said, waving at the display, “but the German women make them and send them to me, so I don’t like to throw them away.”

Petit-bourgeois sentimentality, too, Molotov thought scornfully. Stalin would also find that funny. The only sentiment Stalin had in him was a healthy regard for his own aggrandizement and that of the Soviet Union.

But the twisted romantic streak made Hitler more dangerous, not less, because it meant he acted in ways that could not be rationally calculated. His invasion of the USSR had sent Stalin into several days of shock before he began rallying Soviet resistance. Compared to German imperialism, that of the British and French was downright genteel.

Now, though, the whole world faced imperialism from aliens whose ancient economic and political systems were joined with a technology more than modern. Molotov had repeatedly gone through the words of Marx and Engels to try to grasp how such an anomaly could be, but without success. What was clear was that advanced capitalist (even fascist) and socialist societies had to do everything in their power to resist being thrown catastrophically backward in their development.

Hitler said, “You may thank General Secretary Stalin for sharing with Germany the possible explosive materials which were obtained by the combined German-Soviet fighting team.”

“I shall do so.” Molotov inclined his head in a precise nod. As well he had long schooled his features to reveal nothing, for they did not show Hitler the consternation he felt. So that damned German tankman had got through after all! That was very bad. Stalin had intended proffering the image of cooperation, not its substance. He would not be pleased.

Hitler went on, “The government of the Soviet Union is to be commended for thinking this explosive too valuable to be flown to Germany and letting it come by the overland route where even you, Herr Foreign Commissar, traveled here by air.”

The sarcasm there was enough to raise welts, not least because Molotov loathed flying of any sort and had been ordered by Stalin into the horrible little biplane that brought him to Germany. Pretending everything was serene, Molotov said, “Comrade Stalin solicited the advice of military experts and then followed it. He is of course delighted that your consignment reached you safely by the plan he devised.” A thumping lie, but how was Hitler supposed to call him on it, especially since the courier had somehow beaten the, odds of the journey?

But Hitler found a way: “Please tell Herr Stalin also that he would have done better to fly it here, as then we should not have had half of it hijacked by Jews.”

“What’s that?” Molotov said.

“Hijacked by Jews,” Hitler repeated, as if to a backward child. Molotov concealed his irritation in the same way he concealed everything not immediately relevant to the business at hand. Hitler gestured violently; his voice rose to an angry shout. “As the good German major was traversing Poland, he was halted at gunpoint by Jewish bandits who forced him to divest himself of half the precious treasure he was bringing to German science.”

This was news, and unsettling news, to Molotov. He could not resist a barb in return: “Had you not so tormented the Jews in the states your armies overcame, no doubt they would have been less eager to interfere with the courier.”

“But the Jews are parasites on the body of mankind,” Hitler said earnestly. “They have no culture of their own; the foundations of their situation of living are always taken from those around them. They completely lack the idealistic attitude, the will to contribute to the development of others. Look how they, more than anyone else, have cozied up to the Lizards’ back-sides.”

“Look why they have,” Molotov returned. His wife, Polina Zhemchuzhina, was of Jewish blood, though he did not think Hitler knew that. “Anyone drowning will grab for a spar, no matter where he finds it.” So the British joined us in the fight against you, he thought. Aloud, he went on, “Besides, has not the Lizards’ former chief spokesman among the Polish Jews repudiated them and gone into hiding?”

Hitler waved that aside. “Aliens themselves in Europe, they find their fit place toadying to the worse aliens who now torment us.”

“What do you mean?” Molotov asked sharply. “Have they turned over to the Lizards the explosive metal they took from the courier? If so, I demand that you allow me to communicate with my government immediately.” Stalin would have to know at once that the Lizards knew for certain human beings were working to duplicate their much greater weapons so he could apply yet another layer of secrecy to his project.

“No, not even they were so depraved as that,” Hitler admitted; he sounded reluctant to make any concession, no matter how small.

“Well, what then? Did they keep it for themselves?” Molotov wondered what the Polish Jews would do if they had kept the explosive metal. Would they make a bomb and use it against the Lizards, or would they make one and use it against the Reich? That question would have been going through Hitler’s mind, too.

But the German leader shook his head. “They did not keep it, either. They are going to try to smuggle it to the fellow Jews in the United States.” Hitler’s little toothbrush mustache-quivered, as if he’d just smelled something rotten.

Molotov wondered how many of those Jews would have fled to the United States had the Nazis not forced them out of Germany and its allies. The tsars and their pogroms had done the same thing in pre-Communist Russia, and the present Soviet Union was the poorer for their shortsightedness. Molotov was too convinced an atheist to take any religion seriously as far as doctrine, but Jews tended to be both clever and well educated, valuable traits in any nation that aspired to build and grow.

With a scissorslike effort of will, the foreign minister snipped off those irrelevant threads of thought and returned to the matter at hand. He said, “I need to inform the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of this development.” It wasn’t as urgent as if the Lizards had learned what Stalin was up to, but it was important news. America, after all, not Germany or Britain, was the most powerful capitalist state and so the most likely future opponent of the Soviet Union… assuming such concerns kept their meaning in a world with Lizards init.

“Arrangements will be made for you to communicate,” Hitler said. “The telegraph through Scandinavia remains fairly reliable and fairly secure.”

“That will have to do,” Molotov said. Fairly reliable he could deal with; nothing could be expected to work perfectly. But fairly secure! The Nazis were bunglers indeed if they tolerated security that was only fair. Inside, where it did not show, the Soviet foreign minister smiled. The Germans had no idea how thoroughly agents of the USSR kept Stalin informed about everything they did.