Things Never Known: The Parallel Nazi - 8 Page 2

  Winston Spencer Churchill, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leaned back in his chair and stretched. The day had darkened early as the first major winter storm blew in from the Atlantic. It snarled traffic in the city he considered the center of civilization. He would not be able to get away this weekend to Chartwell or even to Chequers. And this was despite the weather.

  Churchill had achieved his immediate goal and recovered the premiership in the fall elections. Against all expectations, the Conservative Party had carried the elections, increasing its majority in the House of Commons. Churchill had stood for a safe seat arranged by friends and supporters. After a few short years in the wilderness, he was now back in a position of authority.

  Unfortunately, most of his support came from the parliamentary backbenchers, those without the seniority or influence to assume leadership positions. Still, enough of those usually inconsequential politicians had risen to rehabilitate the lion of England and secure his position. However, the party leadership had overwhelmingly refused to serve in the government with Churchill.

  Some refused out of principle. These were the people who knew enough about Churchill’s prior regime and the disaster in Lisbon to stay away. Others listened to their instincts for self-preservation and did not want to stand near the great man if lighting struck, either from heaven or the throne. Fortunately, Leonard Wood, Lord Halifax, had agreed to remain in the Cabinet. Churchill counted on Wood to provide continuity to British foreign policy for the next several years. Halifax had reservations about serving in a new Churchill cabinet, but the prime minister prevailed upon him to continue in the position. The two men had been friends for years.

  The dearth of experienced cabinet ministers forced Churchill to reach deep into the back benches of the House of Commons to find those willing to serve. This had obvious advantages for the prime minister in that it rewarded those who had subjected their political careers to very real risks by supporting him. And his actions were repaid by unswerving loyalty. But it also resulted in an inexperienced cabinet, forcing Churchill to manage in more detail than fitted his desires and capabilities.

  So, rather than catching an early train to one of his redoubts, Churchill would be fortunate to return to the flat he and Clementine had leased in London by midnight. That being the case, he called his secretary.

  “Andrew, do you suppose you could arrange for a light meal for my desk this afternoon?”

  “Of course, Prime Minister. Is there anything, in particular, you would like?”

  “A simple corned beef sandwich should do the trick, I believe.”

  “I will have it to you immediately, Sir.”

  “Thank you, Andrew.”

  Churchill turned to the credenza behind him, splashed a little whiskey into a tumbler, and then filled it with water from a decanter. He set the tumbler on his desk and slid a cigar from his vest pocket. After unwrapping and trimming it, he set a match to the cigar and puffed it alight. Once the tobacco was stoked, he rose from his chair and walked to one of the windows, carrying the tumbler and the cigar.

  The fog of snowflakes swirled into the street below and began building significant accumulation. Churchill considered it wise that he had not attempted the trip even to Chequers, though it was relatively close to the city. And since the weather would probably shut down London over the weekend and possibly into next week, he expected most of the employees to stay home. He would take advantage of the quietude by wading through the mountains of paper on his desk and also use the time to reflect on his governing strategy.

  The Kingdom was at peace with Germany, and it looked like Herr Schloss now had the upper hand in that nation’s war against the Soviet Union. While he had no love for the Nazis, Churchill preferred dealing with them rather than having Russian troops glowering at the British from across the channel. His concern was over the lands that the Germans occupied in Europe. While Heinrich Schloss seemed to be a decent and honorable man, he gave no indications of releasing his grip on France, the low countries, or the nations Germany held in Central and Eastern Europe.

  As far as Churchill was concerned, Britain had betrayed its treaty obligations to those lands when it agreed to a peace treaty with Germany. True, it allowed England to focus on the Japanese occupation of Australia and other lands in the Far East. But he could not right the wrongs without convincing Schloss to give up his European conquests.

  Queen Margaret had developed a foreign policy that accommodated Germany, assuming that sooner or later Germany would be forced into a settlement of some kind with her conquests. This was the policy Churchill had now inherited, and he struggled in his thinking with how to move it forward.

  Falling snow always seemed peaceful to Churchill, though the wind-whipped blizzard was anything but quiet. He briefly considered whether the storm symbolized his efforts to bend the government to his will. He shivered at the cold air seeping around the ancient window casement. He moved over to the hearth and sipped the whiskey as he warmed himself in front of the coal fire.

  Andrew arrived with the sandwich wrapped in paper and popped open a bottle of stout for him.

  “Ah, thank you, Andrew. It’s going to be a late night, I’m afraid. I suppose you should hie yourself home before you get lost in the drifts.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Prime Minister, I think I’ll stay in the office. Nancy is visiting her Mum down in Sutton, so there is no reason for me to be home.”

  “Other than a warm bed,” Churchill chuckled.

  “Well, Sir, I’ve used the sofa in my office before. I can use it again. Besides, there is plenty for me to do.”

  “I appreciate your keeping some of the paper off my desk,” Churchill replied. “I am amazed at all the mandarins who seem to justify their existence by creating reports.”

  “And they never seem to use one word when two will do,” Andrew commented.

  The prime minister laughed softly. “I think you have the right of it. Very well. I trust you thought to pick up something for yourself while you were out.”

  “Yes, Sir. I did.”

  Churchill nodded and sat down again in his chair to begin unwrapping the paper around his sandwich. Although Andrew had only recently come aboard, he had quickly understood the boss’s tastes and food preferences. The corned beef on rye was generously slathered with mustard and included a light string of onion. The bread was freshly baked and still felt slightly warm despite its winter journey from the delicatessen.

  As he began working on the sandwich, he looked down at the position paper the new deputy foreign minister had prepared. Halifax had sent it over for Churchill to review. Clive Axelrod was a backbencher who had evinced an interest in foreign policy. Unfortunately, he was still developing his skills. And Churchill considered that a charitable observation. Better that Halifax should mentor the young man rather than Churchill, the prime minister thought.

  The paper advocated dropping all cooperative projects with Germany until Germany agreed to begin the process of releasing the conquered territories. While Churchill couldn’t argue with that in principle, most joint projects benefited the UK more than Germany. And Britain’s treasury was still not anything that would inspire confidence in the future. Plus, the prime minister had to consider Margaret’s volatility. She had sacked him once. He didn’t think she could get away with something like that again, but it would be dangerous to put her in the position where she might try.

  Churchill had given a lot of thought to how he would govern if he ever managed to land in this office again. Now that he was here, he felt hemmed in by the walls of fiscal challenge, the Queen’s influence, and current events in the world at large. Other than Stalin’s and Kruglov’s military adventures, the world was largely at peace, and everyone preferred it that way.

  England had beggared herself in the war with Germany and could not afford another. The United States was consumed with repairing the damage from the atomic accident in Hanford, Washington. The Far East was focused on
recovering from the Japanese war. Nobody wanted war, and Churchill had no intention of encouraging one.

  But the big challenge was regaining that place of preeminence for the British Empire. England no longer had much influence on the continent. It looked as though the Crown Jewel of the empire, India, would soon be going its way. The Egyptians were agitating for freedom. Singapore was making noises. All that would be left was Gibraltar, and Franco wanted that back for Spain.

  Churchill had finished the sandwich and the pint. He now tossed off the whiskey and settled down to redline the report from Deputy Foreign Minister Axelrod. The man had agreed to serve, and Churchill felt obligated to help Halifax train him. Perhaps it was an opportunity to develop a new generation of Tory leaders who weren’t so hide-bound and resistant to change.

  He glanced at the wind-driven snow against the window and wondered if it was too late to rescue the fortunes of the British Empire.

  CHAPTER THREE

  December 18, 1944; 10 AM

  Reich Chancellor’s Office

  Reich Chancellery

  Berlin, Germany

  Heinrich Schloss, the Reich Chancellor of Germany, watched the snow and sleet rattle against the window as he completed his fourth cup of coffee. The winter storm covered most of Western Europe and moved toward the east. Broad swaths of England were without electricity, and some of the trains had stopped running.

  Schloss left his office and visited the toilet before meeting with the OKW leadership. During his absence to answer the call of nature, Frau Pappel had delivered a fresh carafe of coffee and another stack of paper for him to labor over.

  Schloss considered the apparition, which was Frau Pappel, as he walked past her desk and returned to his office. He still grieved over the loss of Willem Kirche in the abortive Munich Faction uprising. There was no question Frau Pappel was the more effective secretary. She seemed to know which items required his immediate attention instinctively. But she lacked Willem’s irreverent touch, which always lightened Schloss’s day.

  The old lady had arrived at the request of Frau Marsden, and of course, Schloss was not sure of her background. She had promised to maintain the office only until Schloss hired a new secretary. And each candidate, so far, lacked one characteristic or another that Schloss felt necessary for the job.

  The Reich Chancellor had never been sure of Frau Marsden’s origins, either. The old lady had been in place as his family's governess when he arrived in 1941 Berlin. She knew more about him than he did himself. Schloss had concluded that he was in a parallel history, different from the 1982 Berlin where he existed as a history professor.

  That this was a parallel world, or universe, or whatever, had become more evident as he struggled to survive as one of the key leaders in Nazi Germany. For example, in this world, the British king, his wife, and crown princess perished during the London Blitz of 1940. Margaret Windsor now sat on the throne. This Margaret was ten years older than her analog in Schloss’s homeworld. Other differences were minor, unnoticed until he tripped over them.

  This Heinrich Schloss took the lessons he learned as a 1980s history professor to guide his actions here. After succeeding in his contest against Himmler, he stopped the predations against the Jews. He had worked assiduously to avoid a war with the United States and concluded the war with England. And his goal of creating an unchallenged, moral German state in Europe was interrupted when Stalin invaded.

  Now Stalin was dead, and Germany had shifted the momentum of the war in its favor. Schloss now strove to redesign the map of Eastern Europe in Germany’s favor. Yet, this was not without risk. He knew he had to be remain vigilant.

  Frau Pappel ushered the guests for the next meeting into the office and then carried in a tray of coffee and pastries. Generals Guderian and von Rundstedt settled into their usual chairs and looked expectantly at the Reich Chancellor.

  “Thank you for coming in today, meine Herren,” Schloss began. “After the news of the weekend, I thought we should update ourselves on the current state of the war in the East.”

  Von Rundstedt cleared his throat. “Of course, Herr Reich Chancellor. We evacuated General Rommel by air to the military hospital in Riga. I expect him to survive.”

  “What exactly happened?” Schloss asked.

  “A sniper shot him in the shoulder, mein Herr. He had just arrived at the front. We have noted the increase in partisan activity, and they mainly target the rail system and the trains. Rommel had just stepped off a wagon at the end of the rail line.”

  “And a shoulder wound is unpleasant,” Guderian commented. “His shoulder and arm may be permanently crippled.”

  “I’m delighted he survived,” Schloss said. “What can you tell me about the progress of the war?”

  Von Rundstedt nodded to Guderian, who picked up the thread.

  “Our invasion out of Latvia is advancing about three kilometers per day. So far, we have encountered only light resistance. The winter is the enemy.”

  “I can understand that,” Schloss said. “We could lose entire armies in the snow and not find the bodies until spring.”

  “And that has informed our strategy,” Guderian replied. “Rommel was concerned that we were not advancing quickly enough. However, the railroad construction and the logistics are keeping up with the army. The Luftwaffe Fortresses are successfully interdicting Russian attempts at reinforcement.”

  “I suppose this begs the question, meine Herren,” Schloss posed. “Are we successful in our strategy to take the pressure off Smirnoff in Ukraine?”

  “I believe so,” Reichsmarshall von Rundstedt answered. “As you know, Smirnoff has successfully gotten across the Dnieper. He now holds Kiev. He hasn’t routed the Russians, but he is pressing forward.”

  “But the Russian forces are maintaining coherency?”

  “We see no sign they are ready to collapse,” von Rundstedt replied. “They are retreating, but it is orderly, and they are conserving their forces.”

  “That bothers me, meine Herren. If we are still fighting in the spring, which looks probable, we risk allowing them to regain their footing. And Gehlen sees no signs of panic in Moscow.”

  “I have heard that Khrushchev is getting the Ukrainian industry going again,” Guderian commented. “That will be helpful to us and something the Russians can no longer utilize.”

  “True,” Schloss conceded, “but we bombed the western part of Ukraine heavily over the past few years, so Khrushchev is starting from a small base. I fear that, given the summer to recover, the Russians might break through Smirnoff’s lines and swing up through Poland and East Prussia. That would cut off our forces in Latvia and Northern Russia.”

  “Heinz and I have prepared contingency plans for such an event,” von Rundstedt said. “Because we have been building up the rail network, we think we can pull our forces back much faster than the Russians could advance across Ukraine. And we think the Russians would be wary of a single thrust like that. The lessons of this war have shown everyone the risks of that strategy. The Russians would be more likely to advance on a broad front.”

  “Would they be more likely to concentrate on us since we are closer to Moscow?” Schloss asked.

  “That is exactly what they are doing,” von Rundstedt answered. “They are moving reinforcements to Nelidovo.”

  “And where is that, exactly?”

  “It is approximately halfway between the Latvian border and Moscow. We are bombing them, of course, but they have gotten much better at camouflage and misdirection. We have concluded that the Russians think that is the best place to stop us and begin a counteroffensive.”

  “Would they succeed?”

  “We hope not,” Guderian commented. “Their lack of effort in resisting us at the moment is puzzling. Even with the winter and their logistical difficulties, we should be facing stronger forces.”

  “So, would you say that the Russians are playing smart?”

  “That is it, exactly, mein Herr,” Guderian repli
ed.

  “So, may I assume you are preparing possible responses?”

  “We are,” Guderian chuckled. “While Rommel has been concerned about the slow pace of the advance, he has worked to keep the troops rested and fed.”

  “What about the maintenance cycles?”

  “That, too. It is more difficult to keep the equipment in shape during the winter, but we have given this a lot of study. We think the Russians will be prepared. We will be prepared, too.”

  “What about leadership in the meanwhile? How long do you expect Rommel to be sidelined?”

  Von Rundstedt sighed and cocked his head. “Rommel will probably be out for six months if he ever comes back. I do not want to pressure him until he has recovered. General Balck has day-to-day responsibility at the front. He has done well. If necessary, we can move General von Mannstein over the theater.”

  “When we announced news of Rommel’s injury,” Guderian volunteered, “I received a message from General Schörner. He volunteered to take over for Rommel.”

  Von Rundstedt snorted. “You didn’t tell me that, Heinz.”

  “I responded by thanking him for his willingness, but I didn’t want to pull him out of his current critical position.”

  Schloss laughed. “Ever the tactful one, Heinz.”

  “I think General Schörner is doing just fine on the Ukrainian border,” von Rundstedt commented with a smile.

  Schloss glanced at his desk clock. “I suppose I need to move on to my next meeting. I expect Frau Pappel to open the door and glare at me any moment.”

  “Heaven forbid,” Guderian laughed as he stood.

  Von Rundstedt pulled himself to his feet with a groan.

  “How are you doing, really, Gerd?” Schloss asked as he moved over next to the old general.

  “These old bones complain all the time, Herr Reich Chancellor. But I must thank you for appointing me to this position. It has been more satisfying than anything I have done. Perhaps it is inappropriate to say, but I am having fun.”