Jackboot Britain: The Alternate History - Hitler's Victory & The Nazi UK!

by Daniel S. Fletcher

  To the north of that city centre past the park, St Mary’s school stood as a grand red-brick testament to Victorian England, its ornate architecture rising past high window arches to gothic spires and ridges in a formidable mound, like some kind of grim municipal building of a bygone medieval power-centre or 19th century French lunatic asylum. To the more imaginative eye, one could envision some kind of sinister ritualistic neo-pagan festival taking place in its cavernous depths, or row after row of padded cells in a labyrinthine hell; the insane screaming and babbling their disjointed outpourings in a giant, man-made testament to the darker realities of human life, shut away to spare the sane from the discomfort of acknowledging them. In contrast, the parish church nestled into a space three times smaller on the other side of the leafy lane looked a poorer representation of God’s omnipresence. Older members of the parish maintained a haughty silence on the matter, while the younger, less religiously inclined joked that only in ‘God’s Own Country’, as Yorkshire was known, could such a thing be allowed.

  In reality, the great building was host to a school of great warmth, and the invariably tentative, fearful first steps taken by five year old boys and girls into its high-ceilinged interior were for nought. Teachers here were young; so many of a lost generation had bled out their fledgling lives on the fields of Flanders, Ypres and Passchendaele that the following batch of teens nationwide were thrust into the adult world at a tender, school-leaving age. For St. Mary’s, youth had brought vigour, enthusiasm and fun. The corridors along the south side of the building were unfettered by additional storeys above them, and as such both they and the Cathedral-like Great Hall curved high overhead, supported by cast-iron arches and great beams.

  “Back at the old castle,” the receptionist smiled from behind the glass of her partition. “Good to see you, Miss Rosenberg.”

  “Good to be back,” Naomi replied fervently.

  It really was. But already, there was a change, something almost imperceptible. Oversensitised by the implications of German victory, the young teacher was sure she detected something in the way Agnes had said her surname. Rosenberg. Perhaps she had merely imagined it.

  “So…” Naomi continued, slightly nonplussed by her own suspicion. “Same as before, from the little I’ve heard? We continue as though nothing ever happened…”

  “So no more tackling fires?” Agnes asked brightly, neither confirming nor denying the implied request, as though unaware that it was a probe for information.

  “No,” Naomi answered with regret, abandoning her planned enquiries. “Back to usual.”

  Usual. As though there could ever be such a thing again. Perhaps there never was, she mused, just a series of drastic changes that generations grow accustomed to and which get taken for granted by their young. Perhaps in fifty years England will be full of dedicated Nazis, she thought, and shuddered. It was hard to picture it, but she knew that after years of occupation, what seemed so quaintly ‘normal’ to her now would appear to be impossible fantasy. Perhaps even misguided.

  “Well,” Agnes chirped, “I suppose it’s best.”

  “Best?” Naomi replied, a little loudly. “Agnes, who really knows what’s best anymore? All we can hope for is peace, for which we have to sacrifice our pride, or otherwise it will be repression, and then more of us sacrifice our lives.”

  Peering through squinted eyes, Agnes gazed at Naomi curiously, her amused poise briefly broken, and the young teacher instantly regretted losing her own composure.

  Just stay normal, and neutral.

  “Anyway,” she resumed, more cheerily, “I guess you’re right. All we can do is carry on. It’s great to be back at the school.”

  She smiled as sweetly as she could, baring her teeth for maximal effect, and then extricated herself from the unnerving chat, strolling out and into the great corridor. Agnes’ eyes followed her until she disappeared from sight, before turning and sharing a well-what-have-you-now look with her fellow receptionist, whose nose was so high in the air that her mouth resembled the Arc du Triomphe entryway in miniature. The shared look was full of an unspoken meaning.

  Naomi Rosenberg had once been a pupil at the school herself. The tall, slender long-legged young teacher turned the heads of older pupils as she strolled confidently through the corridors; emitting bonhomie, smiles and warm greetings were her currency, which she spent freely. That same long-legged lady had once been a slightly gangly, early-developed little girl with neither physical beauty nor mental focus, blundering through academic and social life alike with a graceless charm, showing little sign of the adult she would ultimately blossom into.

  The school had closed upon the start of the war, remaining as such throughout ‘sitzkrieg’, and despite not being particularly patriotic in the standard sense – to King, Empire and flag – Naomi possessed a great love for the democratic ideals instilled in, and espoused by, the people of Great Britain; not to mention a profound dislike of the dictatorial fascist craze which had swept through the continent like a particularly unpleasant domino effect, with its totalitarianism and anti-Semitic persecution.

  Furthermore, she loved Leeds. The city was perfect to Naomi; its place at the heart of the industrial revolution of the prior centuries in northern England was a transformation of grand development that nevertheless left room for large inner city parks, tree-lined roads and leafy suburbs aplenty. She loved the Leodensians, or ‘loiners’, the people of Leeds who, while being part of a modern city, often shared the particular Yorkshire idiosyncrasies of laconic humour, as fearlessly honest as they were broad in tone and dialect, and a prevailing dry understatement that she found endearing.

  Spending time in nearby Roundhay Park by the lake, the public squares near her home, the city centre and its smaller park to the north, or even her own mostly terraced inner-city urban estate with a book, or in the company of friends, were the simple pleasures that city life in Leeds allowed Naomi to enjoy. She’d long since inwardly acknowledged her thankfulness that of all the places in the world her grandparents could have settled in the diaspora, they chose Leeds, Yorkshire, in the north of England.

  Furthermore, Naomi possessed a fiercely independent streak, and on telling her father that she intended to join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force – and being firmly rebuffed, on the grounds that his daughter ‘would not put herself in danger for another stupid war’ – Naomi rebelled. With the quiet pretence of acquiescence, the energised lass signed up for the Auxiliary Fire Service the very next day, slightly nervous, and then thrilled when acceptance came. Her response to the predictable outburst of anger from her father was to move out, and she found a nearby flat of her own. In the context of the time, it had seemed like nothing of import given the dramatic magnitude of the island’s predicament as a whole.

  Sat on the roof, trying to seek out a blaze; underlying the collective fear and misery, Naomi was unashamedly thrilled with her role.

  Months of fire service; the sense of duty and belonging intoxicated her. Then, initially with a savage anti-climax, the Germans came to British shores. Calamity ensued; before long, violent conflict scarred the streets of Leeds and the feeling of anti-climax soon dissipated in the awful midst of war. Thankfully, guerilla action in the urban settlement was as quick as it was bloody. Calm descended. The smoke began to clear.

  After a while, St. Mary’s reopened, now incorporating the 11-16 class along with the smaller children. And Naomi, ruefully, returned to her vocation. The new, older pupils stared with the transparency of youth, their instincts for tact not yet honed. Some mumbled embarrassed replies at their own feet, as she beamed in greeting.

  Only when she’d turned a corner did she lean against the wall, burying her face in her hands. After what felt like hours but was likely a legitimate twelve seconds, she heard a familiar little cough, which was usually attached to the shadow of a smile and slightly raised eyebrows, an affected air of near-permanent amusement. It was a friend. Naomi looked up with dry, if tired eyes into the boyish
face of Paul Heggerty.

  “Paul!”

  “Hey,” he replied, so quietly she sensed rather than heard him.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Not here,” he said quickly.

  She followed him through the great doors to the stairwell, where they ascended one floor to the library, footsteps echoing on the polished, gleaming wood. When they got there, Paul opened the door but seemed to think better of it, in case old Betty the librarian was lurking in some quiet corner amidst the dusty tomes. They stayed in the corridor outside. Naomi leaned against the wall tiredly, worry lines bitten into her pale skin.

  They didn’t exchange a word, and he embraced her. They clung tightly to each other, and he felt a shift in her body’s tension as she relaxed into him. The two friends had touched before – a nudge here, a playful poke in the ribs there, a cheeky pinch or, as at Christmas the year prior, a prim peck on his soft cheek, while flushed with wine – but never like this. Despite being her junior by two years, he held her as a father would; fingers running through her hair, surreptitiously stretching on his tiptoes as the tall Naomi laid her head heavily into his shoulder. He quietly breathed in her scent, nostrils grazing her curly, jet black locks. For all his jokes and jibes at her expense, which were repaid fully in kind, underneath the good-natured teasing Paul was slightly in awe of his friend’s staggering physical gravitas – a combination of beauty and a perceptible goodness of spirit – and even more so of her total ignorance of it. She seemed entirely unaware of her own physical splendour. This embrace, however, was one of concern.

  Eventually he broke it, suppressing his self-congratulation in doing so. He often second-guessed his actions even as he performed them, and at the worldly age of 23 Paul Heggerty was trying to simultaneously eliminate as much of the self-regard and the introspective recrimination as possible.

  Naomi’s head remained bowed after he released her.

  “How are you?” He started tentatively.

  One wide-eyed look in return was enough to tell him all he needed to know. But she too was surprised; gone was her jovial, sharp-witted, cocksure, mocking friend and in his place stood an uncertain and worried man.

  “I know this must be hard for you,” he tried again. She forced herself to perk up. It was good just to hear that broad Leeds accent, which somehow didn’t suit his baby-faced appearance and cheeky, jesting nature.

  “It’s hard for everyone, Paul. We’re all in the same boat.”

  He contradicted her, partly out of habit.

  “Perhaps, but your boat is a little less safe than the one I’m floating along in. For a start, there’s a big Star of David-sized hole in it, and a bloodthirsty shark with a moustache swimming underneath.”

  She glared at him. Even now, he could still bring himself to wind her up. She did concede, though, that the familiarity of his jesting tone helped normalise the situation.

  “I can swim.”

  “I know that,” Paul replied, more evenly. “There are a lot of people in the same situation who can swim. Sometimes it’s best to be on dry land, with the ground under your feet.”

  “Well, we’re all under the same thumb, anyway.”

  “It’s a nasty thumb to be under.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I do worry,” he told her, voice noticeably softening, and he seemed so obviously sincere that she couldn’t help but smile, even snigger a little bit. But not a trace of amusement showed in his green, hazel-flecked eyes, or the slightly open pout of his thick-lipped mouth. He held her eyes, briefly, and then looked away without smiling. A small tilt of her head drew no reaction, and she whistled.

  “Good heavens, you really do care don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  The grin faded, and as he calmly turned she held his eyes, compelling him to elaborate. He sighed, without melodrama, with only the small involuntary movements of his hands accompanying the entreaty he made.

  “I’m worried for you, Naomi. I am worried. I’ve seen Berlin under this lot. Visited for t’ Games in ’36, and it were’ bloody ugly I tell you. If the Nuremberg Laws were owt to go by, you’ll be out’ a job at the very least, perhaps an ’ome too, and if t’ rumours are true about German-Jewish relations in Poland as we speak then employment’s the last thing you should worry-”

  “Paul! I get it! I understand!”

  She’d tried to interject breezily, just to cut short such disturbing ruminations, but stress forced its delivery out in a sharper tone than she’d intended. She sounded scared, and knew it. With reason, she conceded.

  Silence was compressed in the great hall, made more intense by the immensity of its surrounding space. When Paul answered, after twenty undemonstrative seconds, he spoke soothingly. “I know. I just want you to be very careful, me lass. Very careful. Head up, ears pricked. Even with the racist rags taken off the newspaper stands and the whole thing toned down, we still saw some very ugly scenes in Berlin. Over here they might not get to every man, woman and child for whatever mad scheme they’ve got going, but teachers, doctors and lawyers–”

  “I know–”

  “–which is why you should consider dropping out quietly, and perhaps even going underground,” he finished without missing a beat, his voice louder. “Cos eventually your lot over there ’ad to register. They’ll be watching certain professions ’ere. And teaching kids? The next generation, the future?” Paul shook his head bitterly, partly in sadness, but tinged by scorn and contempt. “You know what’s going on.”

  And she did. While the south remained under an uncertain occupation, by all accounts, the bile and fury of Germany’s enmity of England raged here, and against the Scottish rebels to the north. Leeds, and Manchester and Liverpool to the west had been securely occupied by now, after bitterness and revolts. Then word had gotten out; SS-Gestapo were quietly operating behind the Wehrmacht’s back, acting in secrecy, their quiet suppressions obscured by the fogs of war.

  Even as life continued as before, ugly reprisals had been taking root.

  “We don’t know for sure that the Gestapo raids are happening,” she said quietly.

  Paul shook his head sadly, but firmly. “SS raids. Whatever their label, they’re not even bothering with the plain clothes schtick, I’m afraid.”

  Naomi smiled wanly. “I doubt they’ll care about a twenty-four year old Jewish girl up north who teaches kids English.”

  Paul hesitated, briefly. “Education, medicine and law were the first professions to be hit in Germany after the Nuremberg Laws. Naomi, please don’t underestimate the news that SS raids are transpiring on British soil. These are death raids,” he hissed, instantly regretting his lack of tact as her bloodless face fell.

  Those great enemies of the National Socialists, whose implacable enmity was eternal and assured, were attacked openly and with righteous indignation. It was in the style of a crusade; liberation by violence, the bacteria of society removed from the organism to save it – that being, the ideal human society as held dear by the Nazis. The freemasons’ lodges had been smashed, as had various other institutions deemed conspiratorial and working for the destruction of western civilisation. Synchronising the concentration of public demonstrations of a worldview that was everywhere victorious, the British Union of Fascist Blackshirts burst triumphantly back out into the open, and in greater numbers than ever. Preening with naked arrogance, those who did not renounce the foreign occupation as an affront to their British identity were happy to assist German and Italian efforts to enshrine fascist ideology on newly claimed soil. Outside the preexisting British fascist party, local chapters of the Anglo-German Friendship Bund were springing up, although here and there, it was commonly known, solitary arrests were being made in the dead of night. Some, it was said, were for reasons that seemed entirely preposterous and impossible to reconcile with the victimised people in question.

  One rumour persisted, strongest of all; some kind of book existed that identified Enemies Of National Socialism. ‘The Black Bo
ok’, people whispered; peculiarly, Naomi thought, as though its colour mattered or made it more sinister. Death lists could be scribbled on newspaper scraps from The Yorkshire Post. It was the actions that were fearful.

  Fear of books and lists. It seemed ludicrous. People with guns, without empathy and given immunity from illegality were the death plague.

  Naomi smiled, her poise recovered. “Doubt my name’s in their book, Paul.”

  “Well that’s one thing I’m not gonna joke about.”

  “You don’t like book jokes?”

  At that, he winced.

  “Come on Paul,” she winked, tone breezy. “Books? Is that what we’re worried about?”

  He stared resolutely at her, determination bleeding green in his eyes and Naomi looked away, discomfited by the vehemence of his concern.

  No one was quite sure, but most of the arrests reported were being attributed to this ‘black book’. Men of fighting age were by and large either with the resistance, were working quietly in their ‘necessary’ jobs (‘collaborators’, it was said, with not inconsiderable guilt, that the resisting men and women were calling these mostly city-based workers who continued to maintain and produce under the Germans) or had been conscripted en masse with tens of thousands of others to the continent. Meanwhile, there was some tittle tattle regarding the book – it was now widely claimed that some of the names on it were dead, or had emigrated years prior. The running joke was that Sigmund Freud was to be arrested posthumously, and that California resident Aldous Huxley was sentenced to death in absentia - A Brave New World, indeed.

  But for all the gallows humour, the SS Security Police and SD were no joke. SiPo und SD, as they were called, comprised of the Gestapo secret police, the German criminal police, and the SS-secret intelligence service – each branch under Reinhard Heydrich’s tender care, and apparently entrusted to some sinister Colonel named Six in England; another doctor, one of the intellectual gangsters Heydrich had staffed his SD with.