by Scott Palter
Takagi Masao (1917-1979): In 1940, the man we remember as Park Chung-Hee was a military cadet in Manchuria. In OTL he would go on to be first elected president and then dictator of South Korea. Here he is an assimilated Korean subject of the Japanese Emperor, who was trained as a teacher but decided he wanted to be an army officer instead.
Thoma (von), Wilhelm Josef Ritter (1891-1948): Won the Bavarian version of the Blue Max in WW1. Commanded ground component of Condor Legion in Spain. Had a Panzer division command in Russia. Transferred to Afrika Korps and captured at Alamein. British monitored his conversations with other senior officers in captivity. Von Thoma indiscreetly told them about V-1 and V-2, including test site. In this series, he has passed up a promotion to Generalmajor (1 star equivalent) to serve as Rommel’s Ia. His wish (this ATL and OTL) was to command a Panzer division in combat. He sees service with Rommel as a step in that direction. Easter egg: before the series ends, he will get his wish and more.
Thomas, Georg (1890–1946): WW1 veteran. Administrator and logistics planner Reichswehr and Wehrmacht. Coup-plotter with ties to Beck’s circle, but not active in 1944. Arrested and imprisoned, but avoided execution.
Todt, Fritz (1891–1942): WW1 veteran. Trained engineer. Gold badge Nazi Party Member. Built the Autobahns and West Wall fortifications. His Organization Todt , OTL, was a de facto labor service for Wehrmacht.
Truman, Harry (1884-1972): Missouri National Guard officer WW1. Nursed a hatred for West Point graduates for how they treated Guard officers in France. Failed small businessman (got caught in the postwar Depression and had those debts hanging over him for much of his life, but he did pay it all back). Held county office as a front for the quite corrupt Pendergast Machine but seems to have been personally honest. Truman was a hard-working detail man, the exact opposite of Roosevelt. He was also able to get down and dirty on patronage, public works contracts, and the rest of the swamp that was day-to-day governance, again the exact opposite of Roosevelt.
Udet, Ernst (1896–1941): WW1 ace fighter pilot. Interwar was stunt flyer, including Hollywood. Joined Nazis in 1933 when his old unit-mate Göring recruited him. Playboy who never coped well with bureaucratic life. In OTL, a suicide. Dive-bombing fanatic.
Umberto II (1904–1983): Crown Prince, son of Victor Emmanuel III. De facto head of state from 1944. Briefly King in 1946.
Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947): King of Italy 1900–1946. Allowed Mussolini to take power. Mismanaged removing Mussolini in 1943, and Italy’s switching sides the same year. Dethroned, 1946.
Wang Ming (1904-1974): One of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party, but spends more time 20’s and 30’s in Moscow than in China. Marginalized by Mao in intraparty disputes centered on both personalities and Mao’s peasant/guerrilla-centric deviations from orthodox Stalinism.
Wavell, Archibald (1883-1950): Served in Boer War. Spent most of WW1 and after in staff positions, but managed a war wound (lost an eye) and medal for heroism. Regarded as a military intellectual, become commander Middle East 1939. Had success against the Italians (Libya, East Africa), but failed elsewhere against the Germans (Greece, Libya, Egypt). Swapped out June 1941 for Auchinleck, C-in-C India. Further failures in Burma, East Indies, Singapore. Political problems in India. It is probably unfair to blame Wavell for every failure under his command, as much was imperial overstretch plus idiotic decisions by war cabinet - starting with Churchill, who never was especially good at adjusting ends to means. In reverse. most of the original success in the Western Desert owes far more to O’Connor’s operational brilliance and Italian command errors.
Weygand, Maxime (1867-1965): Foch’s Chief of Staff 1918. Improperly credited with the Polish Miracle of the Vistula in 1920. Parked in Syria at outbreak of WW2 because of French cabinet politics. Recalled after Gamelin had lost the battle. Failed to coordinate the ill-fated attacks to sever Guderian’s spearheads and restore the line. Did an extremely competent defense on the Aisne-Somme, but insisted the government sue for peace when these lines were breached because Weygand wanted to keep the Army intact in case the Communists rebelled. Loyal to Vichy. Advocated limited collaboration with the Germans. Arrested by the Nazis after TORCH and imprisoned for the rest of the war. Accused of collaboration postwar, but beat the charge because the Nazis had imprisoned him. He was a man of the late 19th century but a quite competent officer.
Wolf, Markus (1923-2006): Half-Jewish German Communist whose family fled to the USSR when Hitler came to power. Dedicated Soviet citizen; obtained Soviet identity documents. Worked for COMINTERN from an early age. Trained as a ‘journalist’, but when sent by the Soviets back to Germany at war’s end, was made a nominal German again. Government official before being tasked with forming the East German foreign intelligence service in 1951. He is alleged to be the prototype for LeCarre’s spymaster Karla. Wolf was extremely intelligent and efficient, but shunned the public eye. Even by shadow-world standards he was a mystery man during his active career.
Wolff, Karl (1900–1984): WW1. Freikorps. Banker and public relations man. Joined Nazis and SS, 1931. Protégé of Himmler’s. Head of SS in occupied Italy. Helped arrange a surrender of Axis forces in Italy, April 1945, without Hitler’s permission. Turned state’s evidence at Nürnberg, but nonetheless did two small sentences for war crimes. Returned to the public relations business. Appeared to have had ties to CIA and US protection.
Yamashita Tomoyuki (1885-1946): Japanese general. Ran a brilliant campaign 1941-1942 in Malaya and Singapore. Then sidelined for two years in Japanese Army factional politics. Commanded on Luzon 1944-1945. Tried and executed as a war criminal in 1946. Trial was a travesty. The Manila war crimes were, in violation of his written orders, committed by Japanese naval troops who denied his right to give them orders. His real crime was making MacArthur look inept.
Fictional Characters
Dramatis Personae
Fictional
Alistare-Smythe, Edward (?-?): this is the unnamed brigadier from book 1 – here in book 2 we have his name and a hint at his amazing social contacts. Expect all to be revealed in due time.
Arcau LaTorre, Maria de la Conception (1920-?) ‘Coxita’: She grew up in a family of educated radicals in Barcelona. As a teen militant she drifted from Catalan nationalism to anarchism to left socialism/national Leninism before becoming a Communist/Stalinist [Spain had two Communist Parties, the other being a mix of Trotskyites and eclectic leftists] in the first months of the Spanish Civil War. She served in the local neighborhood Cheka before volunteering for the front as a company commissar in 1937. The defeat of the Republic was a huge shock to her ideals. Initially her relationship with di Salo was a matter of expedience. Being a Fascist officer’s whore was better than violent gang rape by a pack of drunken Moroccan mercenaries. She still doesn’t love him. She regards romantic love as a bourgeois fantasy. However, she’s simply comfortable having a strong protector in a nasty world. He’s rich and lives well. As long as she stays with him, so does she. Trilingual in Spanish, Catalan, French from family background. Fluent by now in English, Italian, Russian. Knows quite a bit of German, Yiddish, Polish, and Magyar from service alongside Internationals in Spain. She’s smart, amoral, nihilistic, and quite blood-thirsty. Has some NKVD-taught skills as an interrogator. Beneath her apolitical exterior (di Salo has somewhat enforced this on her by the end of book 2) she is still an instinctive anti-capitalist. Her Stalinism is a façade but she thinks she believes in it. She partially justified her relationship with DiSalo by reminding herself that her man-god Stalin is allied with Germany and Italy against the capitalists. Nickname: Coxita. Promoted Hauptmann end of book 2.
Ari Pasha, Gisht (1895-?): Alexandrine gangster and businessman. Of Albanian and Alawite descent. Early life is unknown, as is place of birth. He is a major power in the demimonde, with interests throughout the region. He’s brilliant, ruthless; but somewhat naïve about how the higher world of nations and major institutions works.
Baghdadi, David (1882-?): A patria
rch of a merchant clan whose members span the globe from Capetown to Shanghai to Panama. These Sephardic Jews have survived the Persians, Ottomans, and now the British. The clan also does estate management, international money movement (around such minor problems as capital controls), and a variety of other profitable ventures.
Battaglia, Giuseppe (1915–?): Also goes by “Joey Bats” and “Brooklyn”. Italian-American mechanical wizard. Not exactly Cosa Nostra, but ran in those circles.
Cohen, Isaac [Also known as Isaak Schwabe] (1896–?): Greta’s uncle by marriage. Artillery officer WW1, Honvéd. Metallurgist specializing in oilfield pipes and machines. Fluent in German, Magyar, Romanian, English, Yiddish. Knows some French and Italian.
Cohen, Luke [Schwabe] (probably 1921 - ?): Third street kid brother/cousin. He’s pegged as the oldest but it’s a pure guess. Mother Rachel just assigned ages to the three urchins her husband brought home. Luke is the one who formally apprenticed to her engineering-graduate husband. Luke is the tech genius who interfaces with the foreign experts at Ploiesti. He’s the least physically huge of the three but still a large guy with heavy muscles. Easygoing personality, but if pushed can take care of himself. Best linguist of the three, and the only one who learned how to be a weasel. Peter’s approach to problems is fists and boots. Luke will work the angles. Paul will let his brothers handle it if possible.
Cohen, Paul [Schwabe] ( probably 1923 - ?): Street kid and possible brother/cousin to Peter and Luke, adopted by Isaac Cohen / Isaak Schwabe and his wife. Paul was the machinist and technician. Excellent eye /hand coordination, and amazing ability to visualize mechanical constructs. He is of large size (Peter is huge and muscled like a troll). His schooling is functional rather than deep, but he’s been helping in Isaac’s metal shops since he was tall enough to reach a work bench. He doesn’t have Joey Bats’s knowledge of autos, but knows more about complex machinery than Bats. Extremely loyal to his foster family but better social skills than his two brothers. Goes by Schwabe when introduced in book 2.
Cohen, Peter (probably born 1922– ?): de facto adoptive son of Isaac and Rachel. Physically huge and extremely strong, even for his size and physique. A born survivor, extremely loyal to his adoptive family, including his brothers/cousins and de facto household members, such as Greta Levi and Ivan Gorlov. His solution to most problems is fists and boots. Gunter is first man he ever met who would probably be his equal in a fight. Hauptmann in book 2.
Cohen, Rachel (1898–?): Crazy Ruth’s older and wiser sister. Greta’s aunt. Also known as Rachel Schwabe.
Collins, Abdul (he is not quite sure how old he is - just past puberty, so the unit pegs him at 13): He’s short and scrawny when captured. He fills out fast and starts to shoot up on a diet with a lot of protein. Uneducated, but a lively mind and a dead shot. Very happy to be a Collins. Gets formal rank of private of which he is immensely proud. Unit names him Abe, as they find Arabic names difficult.
Collins, Bain (1927-?): Bastard child of an Irish NCO and his Bengali concubine. Knows his letters (in English) and numbers. Extremely facile with languages. Anglophone. Speaks street Bengali, Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi, Italian, Arabic. Is rapidly learning German. Grew up around armies and knows how to fit in to military structures. He’s got street smarts and a winsome personality. No national loyalties at all. Loyal to family, friends, unit. Makes Corporal and is insanely proud of this.
Collins, Mary [Mary the Cook] (1913-?): common-law-wife to retired British NCO. Bengali Hindu rebranded as Irish Catholic. Illiterate but intelligent. Speaks decent English, Bengali, Urdu, Hindi, Maltese/Italian, and passable Arabic. Knows 100-200 words of maybe 20 languages. Also Bengali from birth, and ‘Army Hindi’ from her time with her Irishman. Her ‘British’ cooking is British Indian when it comes to spices, but otherwise decent although not gourmet. Has three children, with the oldest being a 13-year-old son, Bain. Good with children and with military life in general. A born scrounger but not a law/rules-breaking weasel. She knows life from the bottom and is adaptable to change. Very class- and rank-conscious.
Dika: underage sex worker from Romania. Roma.
Di Salo, Lieutenant Colonel John Marco Karoly Riva (1902-?): Italian aristocratic father, rich English mother. Educated in England. Eton. Oxford. After university, successful career with maternal grandfather’s financial firm in the City of London. Year of officer’s training in Italy. Initial branch was cavalry, but did his service time with the new armored cars. Took the course for the Alpine corps before leaving service. Volunteered for service in Spain with Italian Expeditionary Corps because finance and the bachelor life in fashionable London was beginning to bore him. Brilliant career in Spain with both Italian and mixed forces. Returned to finance after Spanish Civil War, but again was bored. Returned to Italy just before Italy entered the war. Completely bilingual Italian/English. Also fluent in French, Spanish, German, Magyar, Serbo-Croat/Montenegrin [knows all three dialects from an upper class POV]. Knows some Catalan, Arabic, Russian. Physically fit and quite good-looking. Somewhat vain about looks and ancestry. Not an ideological Fascist, but a man of the Right in an English sense. War booty mistress is Coxita the Commissar. Social links to the ‘Spanish Mafia’ (the Italian senior officers who served in Spain). His family has links to both Prince Umberto and Marshal Balbo. Also links to Serbian and Montenegrin nobility.
Duffy, Kevin (1894–?): Staff officer sent to Malta. Welsh Guards.
Engels, Lothar (1877-?): Village blacksmith in rural Hesse. WW1 and Freikorps veteran. Early Nazi but not Gold Badge. SA officer. From the Strasser wing of the party. Nasty temper, but far from stupid. A brawler in combat style, but a good leader of men. Sturmbannführer so far.
Fischer, Clara (1913- ?): Born a Communist, trained as a teacher, spent seven years as a cleaning lady while enduring police abuse for her family politics. Never been arrested; but she’s been questioned, warned, and generally mistreated. Stepmother to a brood of abandoned children from party comrades in jail, on the run, or in exile abroad. She is smart and well-read for a working-class lady who made it through teacher’s training. Her Communism is millennial visionary secular religion. She really never paid any attention to details of party dogma or the endless changes in the party line. Never a whore or a criminal, but her life at the bottom put her socially in with both. Wanda and Adolph were friends in a street sense despite their political disagreements. Now she’s saddled with protecting her brother Carl, and a new situation with Joey Bats.
Jung, Lars (1919–?): Veteran of Norway, Rotterdam, Malta.
Gaafar, Jabar Isa (1902-?): lower middle class Alexandrine Egyptian by birth. Educated to high school level. Fluent in all the major European languages (French, English, Greek, Italian, Armenian, Spanish…sadly for him very little German or Yiddish; does know Ladino). Special branch officer whose official specialty was keeping down the various political oppositions, and who had managed to expand his brief into policing/finding accommodations with the demimonde. His excuse is that politics, crime, and illicit finance overlap badly. He is extremely bright, quite diligent, totally amoral, and a complete opportunist. He also reacted to the change in power faster than his rivals.
Gorlov, Ivan (1902–?): Officer cadet with the Whites in 1917. Evacuated from Crimea in 1920 as a lieutenant colonel. Massive combat experience in between. Washes up in Romania as a starving refugee in 1922, where he is taken in by Isaac Cohen and taught the family business. Lieutenant Colonel so far.
Gretchen (1895–?): Prostitute, and friend of Wanda.
Kleist-Konitz (von), Ernst– (1917- ?): Born of an old military family tracing its service back to Gustav Adolph of Sweden and the Margraves of Brandenburg. The family is reactionary and monarchist. Ernst is anti-Nazi, but a good patriot willing to fight Germany’s wars even under gutter scum. His family is related by various combinations of blood, marriage and prior service to the von Lewinski’s, von Mansteins, the von Kleists, the von Hindenburgs, and the von Stauffenbergs. Also to a fair amount of adjacent Polish
military nobility. Oberleutnant with a week’s active service during the French campaign as an infantry officer. Still has a limp from a wound taken during the breach of the Somme lines. Found recuperation leave boring, so he used family connections to get posted to von Manstein’s German Afrika Korps headquarters as a supernumerary. Ernst is a recruiting-poster German warrior – tall, muscular, athletic, ash blond hair and blue eyes. Women swoon for him. He finds them boring. He likes machines, weapons, and physical activity. Is learning to ride a motorcycle and hoping to find a way to learn to pilot a Storch. Oberleutnant when book 2 starts, Major when it ends. Knight’s Cross as well.
Levi, Greta (1922–?): Also known at various times as Cohen or Schwabe. Less socially awkward than her boyfriend, Klaus, but, if anything, even more politically clueless. She’s intelligent in a teen, space-cadet way, but a faster learner. Oberleutnant.