Next came Austria. With that nation’s historical strong ties to Germany, it was only natural to annex them. All it took was Hitler issuing an ultimatum to Chancellor Schuschnigg demanding he hand over all power to the Austrian Nazi party or face an invasion. German troops entered Austria the next day and were greeted with enthusiasm by the populace, so again the world did nothing.
The annexation of Czechoslovakia was next on the expansion list. The threat of conflict moved British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to organize a series of meetings that culminated in the Munich Agreement where the Czechs gave up the Sudetenlands to Germany.
The night the agreement was signed, Hitler and Tomal nearly laughed themselves into a heart attack. Not only did the world do nothing, they ratified the arrangement. When Chamberlin returned to London, the crowds greeted him with cheers for bringing ‘peace for our time’ the papers declared. The agreement lasted for six months before Hitler seized the remaining Czech territory, installing a puppet state. This still drew no consequences from other nations.
At that point, Tomal began wondering if he would ever goad the rest of Europe into armed conflict, or if Germany would be allowed to take the entire continent without resistance.
While German territory doubled in size without a shot fired, its military complex awakened. Since that meeting in 1932, clandestine early on, but now completely out in the open, factories had been hard at work manufacturing guns, tanks, planes, and all manner of warships above the water and below.
Manufacturing was not the only aspect showing progress toward war. The research and development budgets were now set at unprecedented levels working on advanced armor, rocketry, jet engines, and even nuclear fission.
Tomal was certain that when word leaked out about these programs the world would at last throw down the gauntlet and take action, but it appeared they were just fine with it. Hitler felt their next target, Poland, would draw no recourse either, since the action would also include the Soviet Union, but Tomal felt this would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The taking of Poland would mean another European war. It would be an armed conflict that Germany would have little difficulty winning militarily; he knew it as an absolute fact deep down to the very fiber of his being.
The one question remaining in Tomal’s mind was whether the people of Germany were ready. Looking upon the pile of burning books and the students who added more to the flames, Tomal knew they too were ready for what was to come. What’s more, they were drawing closer to accepting the final solution to Captain Hastelloy’s minions: the Jews.
Weeks earlier, a Jew assassinated a German official in Paris. Tomal chose that moment to test the German people’s resolve for hatred and violence against Hastelloy’s people. During the course of two days, over two hundred fifty synagogues were burned, along with thousands of Jewish businesses trashed and looted. Dozens were killed in the streets as the SS looted homes, schools, even cemeteries, while the police and common citizens just stood by.
The program was coined the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, and afterwards some thirty-thousand Jewish men were arrested for the crime of being Jewish and sent to labor camps. This drew no reaction from the people other than cheers from supporters of the regime.
The true sign of the people’s indifference came when the state imposed a fine of one billion marks on the Jewish community. Those remaining were ordered to clean up the mess and make repairs even though the state confiscated any insurance payments owed to them.
Yes, the people were ready. Ready for war, and ready to remedy the Jew problem created by Hastelloy. That fact had Tomal quite pleased with himself as he stepped up to the microphone to deliver his speech to the exuberant crowd. The marching band leading a parade of banners around the gathering fell silent, as did the crowd, to let Tomal’s words be heard.
“Tonight you say no to decadence and moral corruption. You say yes to decency and morality in family and state! I consign to the flames the writings of Heinrich Mann, Albert Einstein, and Karl Marx.”
“The era of extreme Jewish intellectualism is now at an end. The breakthrough of the German revolution has again cleared the way on the German path. The future German man will not just be a man of books, but a man of character. It is to this end that we want to educate you. As a young person, to already have the courage to face the pitiless glare, to overcome the fear of death, and to regain respect for death - this is the task of this young generation. And thus, you do well in this midnight hour to commit to the flames the evil spirit of the past. This is a strong, great and symbolic deed – a deed that should document the following for the world to know. ‘Here the intellectual foundation of their puppet November Republic is sinking to the ground, but from this wreckage the phoenix of a new spirit will triumphantly rise’,” Tomal concluded.
**********
“I still find it unconscionable and inexcusable that learned men from universities all over Germany burned tens of thousands of books,” Dr. Holmes commented.
“And, I might add, they did it enthusiastically,” Hastelloy said. “This was the extent to which Tomal and Hitler controlled the collective mindset of the German people. They, with surprisingly few exceptions, went along with everything their Nazi leaders said during those early years. It was a methodical conditioning process executed by two masters of their craft, and they did it to absolute perfection”
“All that knowledge burned,” Dr. Holmes sighed. “It’s tragic and really ought to be memorialized with a statue or monument to ensure that it never happens again.”
“There is one,” Mark added to the discussion, “right in the center of Opernplatz Square; although most people walk right past it without even knowing it’s there. The profoundly subtle nature of it is why I remember it so well from my time spent in Berlin.”
“The memorial consists of a glass plate three feet square set into the cobblestones. Below, like looking through a window, it gives a view of a small room. That room is lined with empty bookshelves painted pure white that are able to hold 20,000 books; so subtle, yet so moving.”
“Good memory,” Hastelloy complimented. “There is also a plaque laid into the ground next to it engraved with a quote from Heinrich Heine’s play written in 1821. It reads ‘Where they burn books, they will in the end also burn men’. Rather forward thinking, wouldn’t you agree?”
Neither Mark nor Jeffrey Holmes had anything to add, so Hastelloy continued with his story.
Chapter 22: The September War
Gallono stood on the observation deck of the command bunker built into a prominent hillside along the border between Germany and Poland. He glanced down at his standard issue military wristwatch and noted the assault would begin in thirty seconds.
He took an extra moment to look around the concrete bunker at the distinguished company around him. Chancellor Hitler, Herr Göring and Tomal were all visiting from Berlin along with General Hoth and his support staff. Despite the presence of Nazi royalty in the room, Gallono could feel that all eyes were on him as the clock ticked down.
The attack on Poland began two days earlier and was yielding results almost too good to believe by those in central command. This prompted the top brass to pay a personal visit to the front lines and witness the effectiveness of the new tactics first hand.
Gallono never harbored a doubt that the military doctrine of combined arms he had been teaching at the War Academy for the last five years would be anything other than a resounding success. Everyone still thought about tactics like it was still the Great War: dig a trench, lay obstacles in front of it, and mow the enemy down as they tried to cross. No one fully grasped the potential for speed that aircraft and tanks now provided, but they were beginning to with Poland serving as a live test case to prove out Gallono’s theories.
He raised a set of binoculars to his eyes, magnifying the enemy lines. He saw four successive rows of trenches anchored with machine gun nests and concrete reinforced cannon emplacements stretching across the horiz
on for miles and miles in all directions. In between was a nasty mire of razor wire and wooden fencing. By the standards of the Great War, the Polish defenses looked robust and almost impossible to overcome without massive loss of life for the attackers.
Overhead an annoying buzzing sound similar to a mosquito approached from the west. It was faint at first, but soon ramped up in volume to a deafening roar. The air all around them came alive with the rumble of aircraft flying low overhead to attack the Polish trenches. From his binoculars, Gallono could tell the pilots were aware of their target priority. A few heavy aircraft carpet-bombed the trenches to keep the soldiers in place while the dive bomb fighters swooped down on the heavy gun emplacements, sending plumes of dirt, concrete, and bodies into the air.
For ten minutes, the three-foot thick walls of their command bunker shook from the concussions of explosions raking the Polish lines a mere five miles away.
When the planes withdrew, the noise pollution did not abate. The hum of aircraft engines was replaced by the roar and rumble of an entire tank division rolling into action. Four hundred panzer tanks bore down on the Pols still attempting to dig out from the bombing runs, lining up in ten single file columns as they went.
The heavily armored machines laughed at the rifle and machine gun rounds that plinked harmlessly off their hulls without leaving so much as a dent. The lead tanks in each column were equipped with bulldozer blades in front and they made quick work of flattening out the trench lines in front of them; burying alive countless Polish soldiers in the process.
The razor wire and obstacles placed in no man’s land did nothing to slow down the treaded vehicles. The panzers shot up the enemy lines with their heavy cannons and turret mounted machine guns on their way through. Gallono could hear a low murmur building among his audience upon seeing that the tanks did not stop amid the trenches to continue firing at the enemy. To do that was to invite disaster, as they would serve as stationary targets for the Polish troops to focus their grenades upon and inflict heavy damage. No, the panzer’s mobility was its greatest asset.
With the tanks still rolling through and drawing most of the defensive efforts of the Polish army, the German infantry moved in. Wave upon wave of grey uniformed soldiers fell upon the trenched lines. They poured into one row, then overflowed and spilled over into the next, and the next.
The Polish soldiers saw the futility in their efforts and attempted to retreat, but found themselves wedged between a hammer strike of infantry and the solid anvil presence of tanks at their rear blocking any retreat. The only option left to them at that point was death or surrender. Naturally, they chose surrender, and the German infantry shifted from assault mode to prisoner processing.
“Outstanding,” Hitler exclaimed in a rare moment of praise heaped upon a subordinate. “Reading a battlefield report, no matter how descriptive, of such assaults taking place across the front does not do it justice. I served in the front long enough during the Great War to recognize a well-defended position, and our forces just smashed through one to take thirty thousand captives in under an hour. We are unstoppable!”
“Blitzkrieg is the term we’ve coined,” Gallono said with great pride. “We are unleashing ‘Lighting War’ upon our enemies in the open field of battle.”
“Your innovative tactics are a marvel to behold,” Hitler commended and offered Gallono a congratulatory handshake. He was tempted to refuse the offer for a moment, given that the German leader struck him as a very creepy individual, but to reach the upper echelons within the German military he needed to play the game.
Gallono took the offered hand and felt a solid grip intent on being the stronger of the two. Gallono let him win, inclined his head in deference and said, “Thank you, my Führer.”
“I’m more spellbound by the machines our researchers and factories have produced,” Tomal chimed in to make sure some of the credit fell upon him as well.
“Indeed,” Gallono acknowledged. “Without the forethought of research and your forward planning over the last five years to build the tools we employ, all of this would be impossible.”
“True,” Hitler arrogantly replied and broke off the handshake to point his arm back toward the main command room of the bunker. “Now that this little affair has been won, let us turn our attention back to the greater picture.”
Hitler led the way with Tomal in lockstep behind him like a puppy dog chained to its master out on a walk. The site caused Gallono a moment of uneasy flashbacks to the attachment Tomal forged with Julius Caesar back in Rome. The Novan engineer had a weakness for power and those who afforded it to him. This relationship would bear close watch in the future.
In the center of the twenty-foot by twenty-foot room stood a large topographical map of Poland with red and blue arrows placed about depicting the position of friendly and enemy forces and the direction they were heading. Gallono watched as a skinny, blond attaché repositioned a set of arrows to account for the victory that took place outside.
Hitler clapped his hands with delight upon seeing most of the blue arrows pointing toward retreat with red arrows moving in from positions on the Western and Southern fronts. German forces even managed to push out from the northern Baltic territories that stood isolated from the rest of the Reich by a narrow swath of Polish territory that served as justification for the war in the public’s eyes. “They’re on the run along every front and the assault has just begun. With your lightning attacks we will have the entire country in just a few days, and there’ll be no need to involve the Soviets.”
“Whether they participate or not, Stalin will insist upon the terms of the agreement. We’ll get the western third and the Soviet Union will deal with the remaining eastern territories,” Tomal cautioned.
Hitler clearly did not like hearing this truth given the way he glared at Tomal. After a brief moment, the Chancellor allowed his lips to reveal a sly smile, “For now perhaps.”
Gallono took in the topography of the map and the direction the enemy forces were retreating toward and decided to speak his mind as he pointed to a mountainous region along the Romanian border. “I believe they are pulling back to the Romanian Bridgehead. They plan to use the Stryj and Dniester rivers and hilly terrain as a natural line of defense. Plus, they can still receive supplies through Romania using their nearby port.”
Hitler regarded the map with a focused eye. “Smash them here or crush them there with your assault tactics, does not matter to me.”
“Blitzkrieg doesn’t work over impassable terrain,” Gallono cautioned. “If they manage to reach that point, it will be a long struggle through the winter.”
“You know where they are headed. You must move our forces quickly to cut them off then,” Hitler instructed in a curt tone that allowed for nothing but compliance.
“If we fully employ my blitz tactics and allow the panzers to move untethered to the infantry, it can be done,” Gallono offered.
“No,” General Hoth snapped in no uncertain terms and leveled an accusing finger at Gallono. “Moving the panzers without infantry exposes our flank and risks their fuel supply lines. You know my feelings on this matter and you have no business suggesting such recklessness to our Führer.”
“It can be done, and it’s what the Führer now asks to be done,” Gallono countered, afraid that he had overplayed his hand.
Before General Hoth could launch into a formal dressing down of Gallono, Tomal spoke up with his own thoughts. “Let them pull back. That defensible territory is in the future Soviet side of things. Let Stalin deal with it when they join in the attack next week. The Pols will either throw their hands up in surrender, or give the reds a bloody nose before meeting their end. Either way, the Reich gets what it wanted from the bargain.”
“Very sensible. Drive them to this Romanian Bridgehead and let our dear Comrade Stalin figure out what to do with them,” Hitler concluded.
Hitler looked ready to elaborate further, but had his train of thought interrupted by an urgent
message from a courier who looked so honored to meet his Führer in person that he was on the verge of passing out. Hitler dismissed the wide-eyed boy with a hasty salute and proceeded to unfold the note. After a moment spent reading it, Hitler read aloud the letter’s contents. “The United Kingdom and its colonies, along with France, have officially declared war on Germany and pledge to come to the aid and defense of Poland.”
“Shall I give the order to send up the white flags now or should I wait a few days?” General Hoth joked.
Tomal spoke up immediately. “Hardly. Chamberlin and de Gaulle just saved me the trouble of convincing the public that a war with France and the UK is in their best interest. The east will be secure within the month. Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and Spain are all counted as allies or have signed non-aggression pacts with us. That only leaves France and England to bear the brunt of our revenge for decades of oppression.”
“A task not so easily undertaken,” General Hoth protested. “The French have built up their ‘Maginot Line’ along the German-French border to the point that the ground nearly sinks beneath the weight of their fortifications and armaments. There is no possible way through and the same is true about their Alpine Line along the border with Italy. There is simply no way through.”
“Then we will have to devise a way to go around it,” Gallono said as he fetched a map of Western Europe to explain to the others what he had in mind.
Chapter 23: No Laughing Matter
The first thing Hastelloy did in the morning when he reached his office inside the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. was sort through his mail. Every morning, without exception, his secretary arranged his mail in a cascading row of unopened letters right next to a tall stack of newspapers from across the globe. It was his way of making sure that no matter what distractions the day brought, he was always abreast of the latest events around the world. There was nothing more embarrassing than those rare moments when he, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was surprised by news from others.
Origins: The Reich Page 14