Ragnarok

Chapter Six

Berlin, Germany Prime

29 October 1985

“Drink your coffee,” Ambassador Samuel Turtledove said. “There are people down there” — he jabbed a finger towards the window — “who would kill for that cup.”

Andrew Barton nodded in agreement. Berlin was no longer on the verge of starvation, thanks to vast quantities of food being trucked in from the west, but supplies of everything from coffee to baby clothes were running short. The American embassy was about the only place in Berlin, save for a handful of government offices and military bases, where real coffee was freely available. It wasn’t very good coffee, he had to admit, but it was better than the powdered grit Berliners were being served these days.

“I’ve had worse,” he said. “The… slop… I had to drink on the front lines… no wonder the German soldier is so feared.”

Turtledove smiled, then leaned forward. “Washington has been breathing down my neck for a full report,” he said. “What do you make of the war?”

Andrew took a moment to gather his thoughts, sipping his coffee slowly. “I think in some ways we were overestimating the fighting power of the German military,” he said. “And in others, we were underestimating it.”

General William Knox lifted his eyebrows. “You think we were wrong?”

“The Germans haven’t fought a peer power since the final push against Russia, forty years ago,” Andrew said. “We had to use a lot of guesswork when we calculated how the average German division would stack up against its American or British counterpart. And a lot of those guesses might have been wrong.”

He placed the cup on the desk and leaned back in his chair. “Their panzer divisions didn’t strike me as anything like as fearsome as their reputation suggests,” he said. “They move fast over open terrain, but even relatively small opposition slows them down remarkably. Their designers insist on having a radio in each panzer, a development they pioneered, but I had the impression that their technology is primitive and easy to disrupt. And their armour has not advanced at the same speed as their antitank weapons.”

Knox frowned. “You think their panzers are inferior to our tanks?”

“I think so,” Andrew said. “I’m no expert, sir, but I believe our armour is better — our antitank weapons are better too.

“The same seems to be true for their aircraft,” he continued, after a moment. “Their air force was badly shaken by the uprising, then by the war, but it doesn’t seem to have the same flexibility as ours. Their ground-based air defence units are grossly inferior to ours; their flak guns are of very little value unless the aircraft fly low, their rockets have a nasty tendency to lose their locks and fly off in random directions. The best system they have, as far as I can tell, is an oversized warhead designed to explode close to an aircraft.”

He took a breath. “Technology-wise, we are at least ten years ahead of them,” he concluded. “And I think their military would have taken a pasting if we had ever wound up fighting a shooting war.”

Knox frowned. “That’s not what we were told to expect.”

“No,” Andrew agreed. “And there is a reason for that, sir.

“They are tough, very tough. Their junior officers have less flexibility than I was told, but they are still good at spotting opportunities and thrusting through chinks in the enemy’s defences. Their NCOs are very good at training up young men under fire, sir; I think they’re actually tougher than ours, even if their tech is inferior. And they understand the tech at their disposal. The average panzer can be repaired, more or less on the go, by its crew.”

“That’s true of our tanks too,” Knox objected.

“Not for everything,” Andrew countered. “There are things that have to be sent back to the shop — or merely discarded.”

He shook his head. “Overall, sir, their toughness may be enough to make up for their technological inferiority.”

“There’s another point, Mr. Ambassador,” Knox said. “The Germans may never have envisaged a civil war. We certainly haven’t planned, let alone exercised, a full-scale invasion of Texas or Montana. The Germans might have proved far more lethal if they’d launched an invasion of Britain or defended the Atlantic Wall against us.”

Andrew nodded in agreement. He had no doubt that the Germans had thousands of contingency plans — everything from civil unrest to nuclear war — but those plans would have been shot to hell by the civil war. Units they’d thought they could rely on had turned on their leaders; others had been shattered by internal fighting, priceless weapons and equipment destroyed in the crossfire. The steady collapse of federal authority across the United States, just prior to the civil war, was one thing. This was far worse.

They had to put the invasion — and defence — of Germany Prime together from scratch, he thought. And they did a damn good job.

“Very true,” Turtledove said.

He rested his hands on his desk as he spoke. “Washington has also been asking for recommendations,” he added. “Do we continue the program of covert support? Do we go more overt? Or do we pull back, now that Berlin is safe?”

“There is no way that the SS does not know that we are assisting the Berlin Government,” Andrew said, flatly. “They would have lost all doubt, Mr. Ambassador, the moment a Stinger blew one of their aircraft out of the sky. And we should brace ourselves for some kind of drastic reaction.”

The Ambassador frowned. “They’d have to be insane to pick a fight with us.”

“They would see it as us picking a fight with them,” Andrew said.

“Kicking them while they were down,” Knox agreed.

The Ambassador sighed. “So… what do you recommend?”

Andrew frowned. “My contacts tell me that the Provisional Government intends to take the offensive as soon as possible,” he said. “They may intend to invade Germany East before winter, before it becomes impossible to continue the offensive. This is probably their best hope of winning the war quickly — and frankly, sir, we should help them as much as possible.”

“But continuing the war will weaken them,” Knox pointed out. “The longer they fight each other, the easier it will be for their allies to desert them.”

“There’s also the prospect of nuclear weapons being used,” Andrew warned. “The longer the war, the greater the chance that someone will pop a nuke.”

“Or fire on us,” the Ambassador said.

“We would have to give the ABM system its first real test,” Andrew agreed.

He scowled. No one, not even the President, knew how well the ABM system would handle a real missile attack. It had been tested, of course, but only on one or two ballistic missiles at a time. Who knew what would happen when — if — the Nazis launched over a hundred ballistic missiles at America? Even if two-thirds of them were intercepted, the remainder would be enough to destroy the United States.

And the President will burn the Reich in response, he thought. And millions of innocent people will die.

“My very strong recommendation is that we assist the Provisional Government as much as possible,” he said, flatly. “The war needs to be ended as quickly as possible.”

“If it can be ended,” Turtledove mused. “General… if they launch an offensive, what are the odds of success?”

“Incalculable,” Knox admitted. “We simply lack enough information to make a proper judgement. We have no idea how many panzers remain in Germany East, we have no idea how many aircraft are at their disposal, we have no idea how long the SS edifice will remain intact under the pressures of war. And, as Andrew says, we have a great many question marks over the nuclear bombs. It is impossible to say just what will happen when the Heer goes east.

“Practically speaking, I’d give them a reasonably good chance of establishing a solid foothold in Germany East before winter intervenes,” he added. “I find it hard to imagine that the SS held back many panzers and aircraft from their great offensive. But I don’t know if they can make it all the way to Germanica before winter. There’s plenty of space to trade for time, plenty of strongpoints and fortresses that would need to be reduced… their logistics are going to be a major pain.”

“1941 all over again,” Andrew commented.

He’d studied Operation Barbarossa during his training and he still didn’t understand how someone with even minimal military knowledge could have signed off on it without a few qualms. The Germans had faced France on roughly equal terms — the French had even had a few advantages of their own — but they’d won through bringing vastly superior force to bear at the decisive point. The Russians… Russia was immense, with plenty of space to trade for time, while the Red Army was staggeringly powerful. And the Germans had come far too close to losing.

And if they hadn’t declared war on Japan, he thought, we might have helped the Russians kick them out of Russia.

“It’s possible,” Knox agreed. “We simply do not know.”

Turtledove nodded. “And your recommendation, General?”

Knox considered it for a long moment. “It should be noted,” he said, “that the longer the war rages on, the weaker the Germans will become. And while that does raise the spectre of a nuclear release, it also offers the prospect of the Reich collapsing and the end of a global threat. Whoever won the war would need to spend years rebuilding, if they could rebuild.”

He paused, thoughtfully. “But we can probably do business with the Provisional Government,” he added. “That is not true of the SS.”

Andrew nodded. “In this case, the devil we don’t know is better than the one we do,” he said, flatly. “The SS is a devil we know too well.”

He sighed. “You’ve already heard stories of atrocities,” he added. “What sort of nightmare will be unleashed if the SS wins the war?”

“That isn’t our concern,” Knox said. “Our sole concern is protecting America.”

“And a friendly regime in control of the Reich will be better for America than a regime that hates us,” Andrew pointed out. “We can dicker with the Provisional Government.”

“Perhaps,” Turtledove said. He smiled, rather sourly. “Washington may overrule our recommendations anyway.”

“Of course,” Knox grunted. “The people in Washington aren’t the people on the spot.”

Andrew winced. He hadn’t been back to the United States since before the crisis had begun, but he had been hearing things through the grapevine. Everyone wanted to have their say, from Poles and Frenchmen who wanted their countries to be independent to groups that wanted to isolate America from the world or even support the Nazis. And everyone was likely to be disappointed. Poland no longer existed — the Poles who had escaped were the only true Poles left in existence — and France was a shadow of its former self. Andrew suspected it would take generations for the French to recover, even if the Germans pulled out tomorrow…

And while the Provisional Government is better than the SS, he added silently, they’ll still put German interests first.

Knox was right, he knew. Distance — and wishful thinking — had played a large role in several foreign policy disasters; now, with a nuclear power wracked by civil war, the disaster could be a great deal worse. But the President would have to balance a number of competing factions if he wanted to steer America through the growing crisis… and that might be impossible. There were midterm elections coming up.

“I shall discuss the matter with Washington,” Turtledove said. “Andrew, do you wish to return to the front lines?”

“As long as they will have me,” Andrew said. “The chance to watch the war is not one to be dismissed.”

“As long as it doesn’t kill you,” Knox said, dryly.

Andrew shrugged. He was an OSS operative, not an ambassador. The prospect of being scooped up by the SS had always loomed over him, even though — technically — he had diplomatic immunity. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had ‘vanished’ in Berlin, or suffered what looked like a random mugging; he’d known the risks, he’d accepted the risks, when he’d taken the job. The prospect of being killed in battle, even as an observer, seemed cleaner, somehow.

“I know the risks,” he said.

Turtledove nodded. “Get a good night’s sleep first,” he said. “And make sure you eat a good meal before you go back to the front.”

Yes, mother, Andrew thought.

He couldn’t blame Turtledove for worrying. The Germans would feed him as long as he remained within their ranks, but their rations weren’t very good, certainly not by American standards. And he’d been hearing dire rumours about the food situation, rumours that hadn’t been quashed by the sudden influx of supplies. It made him wonder, deep inside, if the Reich was on the verge of starvation as well as everything else. But there was no way to be sure.

At least until it happens, he thought, coldly.

“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador,” he said, rising. “I’ll make sure of it.”

There were times, Volker had to admit, when he thought he understood Karl Holliston’s desire for power perfectly.

He was Chancellor, but he wasn’t omnipotent; he could make some decisions, but others had to be decided by consensus. And this decision, perhaps the most important of all, was one that had to be unanimous. There was no way he could push it forward on his own authority.

“We are currently bringing up additional panzer divisions, along with supporting elements and aircraft,” Voss said. His finger traced lines on the map as he spoke. “If everything goes according to plan, we will be ready to launch a major offensive in two weeks.”

He paused. “We will be thrusting towards Warsaw, but our principle objective will be to envelop and destroy the remaining SS forces in the region,” he continued. “Once those forces have been crushed, we will reform our divisions and continue eastwards. Our goal will be to capture Germanica before the first snowfall.”

There was a long pause. “I acknowledge that there are risks involved,” he concluded. “But I believe this offers the best chance for a speedy victory.”

Volker kept his expression under tight control, his face betraying none of his concerns. The plan was daring, he had to admit. Perhaps it was too daring. Defeat would cripple them as surely as victory would cripple the enemy. And yet… and yet… Voss was right. It offered the best chance for a speedy victory.

“Chancy,” Admiral Wilhelm Riess said, finally. The Head of the Abwehr didn’t sound impressed. “If this plan fails, we will have nothing left.”

“We are already raising new units and bringing back others from South Africa,” Voss said, tartly. “Defeat will weaken us badly, Admiral, but it will also weaken our enemies.”

“And we have to win the war quickly,” Foreign Minister Engelhard Rubarth said. “We are already growing weak, Admiral. It will not be long before our puppet states start thinking they can make decisions for themselves.”

If they’re not already contemplating the possibilities, Volker thought. Even a relatively minor challenge to our power could prove disastrous.

“The South Africans are already turning unfriendly,” he said. “And if they are turning unfriendly, how long will it be before others follow suit?”

“They have friends and allies in Germany East,” Riess pointed out. “Of course they hate us.”

Volker nodded. The SS had been the loudest supporter of the South African War, demanding — time and time again — that vast numbers of German soldiers were sent to prop up an increasingly unpopular government. And then they’d lied about the war… he fought down the sudden surge of hatred, forcing himself to think clearly. If South Africa turned hostile, they could cause real trouble…

“All the more reason to win quickly,” he said. If they won the war in the next three months, they might be able to hold the Reich together. “Can anyone think of a better option?”

There was no answer. Volker wasn’t surprised. There was no compromise — no reasonable compromise — that Karl Holliston would accept. Even a negotiated surrender would probably be rejected, unless it was complete, total and utterly unconditional. Holliston didn’t just want power, he wanted revenge. And there wasn’t a single person, sitting at the table, who would be safe if Holliston won the war. They’d all be lucky if they were merely executed.

“So we proceed,” he said. “Any dissent?”

“We can shift our goals, if the offensive fails,” Riess said. “Can’t we?”

“We have contingency plans,” Voss assured him. “Merely chewing up the remains of their divisions will make it easier for us to launch another offensive in the spring.”

“We will have to be stern with the Easterners,” Luther Stresemann said. The Head of the Economic Intelligence Service looked grim. “Far too many of them are behind the SS.”

Volker winced. The SS’s propaganda offensive was crude, but it was effective. The Easterners knew they lived on the edge of civilisation. They wouldn’t forsake the SS unless they believed their interests would be protected.

“We treat them firmly, but with compassion,” he said, bluntly. “Unless they turn on us.”

“They will,” Voss said. He sounded very sure of himself. “We have to be ready to take strong action.”

“But no atrocities,” Volker said. There were fire-eaters who wanted to retaliate for everything the SS had done, but he knew it couldn’t be permitted. “I don’t want a single incident they can use against us.”

But he knew, even as he said it, that it was nothing more than wishful thinking.