I'm assuming it's largely the same as IRL, afaik no border changes have been made yet (outside maybe the Austrian-Yugoslav border, but I don't recall to what extent)
Der Kampf: The Rise and Fall of the Austrian Führer
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how could i forget the empire of sakhalin (they are entirely irrelevant outside of pissing off the soviets)
I have not thought of anyone to be the main Soviet commander. They need to be apolitical or a committed Sverdlovist, good at their job but not good enough to stop Axis forces from getting fairly deep into the USSR (though not as far at OTL). Any suggestions from y’all?
The original goal was to kill Zhukov off but I have since revised that for him to survive the First and Second Great Purges, he’ll be on the Siberian Front for a good chunk of the war. Might be transferred to the Eastern Front in 1943 or so. Depends how things develop.
Ronald Reagan would one hundred percent be a cameo/minor character. Main character is the aforementioned Iron Chancellor. 1965 would have JFK president, having risen to the presidency following LBJ’s assassination in 1963. Kind of reverse of OTL, at least that’s the thought.
That’s if Tito survives the war.
Neo-Sozinats will never go above 5% of the population within a decade of the war ending and will generally be less than that. By the time of the 1965 book I’d say 2-3% of the population would support a return to Social Nationalism.
Mhmm. This will be revealed later off hand but Sverdlov lost his wife and daughter, so the paranoia mixed with a desire of revenge. He’s about to make Stalin look like a kind uncle.
Nothing has changed as of yet except some minor changes:
-North Sakhalin is now Second Tsardom of Russia under Tsar Kirill, officially a demilitarized zone but in reality a Japanese puppet state that gives Japan a lot of cheap oil.
-Empire of Manchuria is OTL State of Manchuria but expanded all the way down to the Yellow River having fully consumed the Beiyang Government. Southern China is Republic of China, western China are various warlords who don’t even give lip service to the Manchu or Chinese Nationalists.
As for Europe, though Austria ended the Austria-Slovene conflict in Carinthia in a better spot in OTL due to the Kampfgruppe Wolf, it was still forced to cede the land to OTL borders due to LoN/Allied intervention. This really pissed off the Austrians who felt they had won and now were forced to give up their own ‘rightful land.’
Pretty close on the money here.
Mhmm.
Pretty much this though they do provide Japan a LOT of oil. Not enough to meet all its needs, but enough to ease the growing pains of industry and military expansion.
Leonid Govorov seems to be an interesting choice. OTL he was the man who managed to break the Mannerheim Line with use of massive artillery barrages, and later commanded the 5th Army after Mg. General Dmitiri Lelyusheko was wounded in October 1941; he also was appointed commander of the Leningrad Group of Forces in April '42, and later the commander of the Leningrad Front in July. I can't find anything about his politics, but he'd probably be loyal to Sverdlov. He was mainly an artillery commander, which may or may not be what you're looking for, but he at least appears at first glance to be competent (albeit, a one-trick pony, but "blow the fucker up" is a pretty consistently good trick).
Semyon Timoshenko could also be an option. A capable commander, but not quite capable enough to overcome the institutional problems of the Red Army in the early years.
Huh, I hadn’t heard of him. Read up on him a little bit and liked what I saw. Could be the main commander of the USSR on the Eastern Front until Zhukov and others replace him.
He and Zhukov might tag-team smashing the Axis in the later years of the war, replacing Govorov to a General Staff position or some sort.
He could just become the General of Artillery while allowing Timoshenko and Zhukov to manage the rest of the army.
Is Mr Konstantin Konstantinovich Rokossovsky going to be serving in the red army in this timeline? And will he be forced to fight his own ethnic poles or be purged by Sverdlov.
I doubt he would serve in the Polish army firstly because he's a communist and secondly I don't think Rokossovsky really considered himself a pole, he was a Russian with polish decent in his opinion (so did the vast majority of the population of Poland OTL)
I doubt he would serve in the Polish army firstly because he's a communist and secondly I don't think Rokossovsky really considered himself a pole, he was a Russian with polish decent in his opinion (so did the vast majority of the population of Poland OTL)
I will continue to vouch for Tukhachevsky. My main argument? Red Napoleon is a cool nickname.
Other option I'd vote for would be Ivan Chernyakhovsky, one of the youngest Soviet generals, rare two-time Hero of the Soviet Union awardee, and even got a German town named after him post-WWII. Also might give more writer freedom due to his age, making him a more malleable character.
Other option I'd vote for would be Ivan Chernyakhovsky, one of the youngest Soviet generals, rare two-time Hero of the Soviet Union awardee, and even got a German town named after him post-WWII. Also might give more writer freedom due to his age, making him a more malleable character.
Doing rule of cool rarely ends well.
He maybe too capable for the story.
He was able to slow down the progress of Army Group South, such that Hitler insisted on diverting Guderian south to speed things along. Kirponos wanted to withdraw and evade the encirclement, but Stavka (including Zhukov) forbade him from doing so until it was too late. At the end of the day he performed fairly well considering that his hands were tied so comprehensively. He ensured that his forces were on alert for the German invasion when it came, and prudently protested against ill-advised counterattacks that only wore his forces out.
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Ivan Chernyakhovsky could be a good viewpoint character. His youth and rapid rise could help. Could serve with Zhukov originally in Siberia but gets transferred to the Eastern Front and does incredibly well there. Kirponos surviving would be neat. A lot of the OTL USSR generals will get killed in the Purges so having this younger guys rise up will help show the rapid catch up the Red Army is having to do.
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Five
Yaroslavl, Russia
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
May 1932
Yaroslavl, Russia
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
May 1932
The morning sun turned the snow littered land red. To Andrei Fyodorrovich Kolganov, it looked as if blood had been spilled across the ground.
Will it be our corpses that will make it so? He shuddered at the thought.
Kolganov lifted his head higher up, seeing Yaroslavl but a few hundred meters away though the city was blanketed with a thin fog. The city’s buildings, largely visible despite the fog, were akin to an island of humanity in the vastness of the Russian landscape. Looking to his left and right, soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, 7th Cavalry Division were hunkered down in carefully hidden ditches, foxholes and ad-hoc trenches hastily dug over the last few days. Their horses were sheltered in the forests, hiding behind the thick foliage in case any sharp eyed lookout spotted them.
Stalin was sitting next to Kolganov, droplets frozen on the man’s mustache. Looking miserable more than he had ever seen him, Stalin still radiated a sense of lethality. Though he appeared out of his element as a glorified mob boss wearing an NKGB uniform, Kolganov knew that Stalin was by far the most dangerous man in the country. Perhaps only Sverdlov’s ruthlessness could match Stalin’s.
If the premier was even alive that was. If not, then who would take the reins of power from Trotsky’s clutches? Kolganov did not know but he knew that if Stalin were somehow able to make himself the Soviet Union’s newest dictator, it would be atop a mountain of corpses. Kolganov shivered, the effort caused by fear rather than the cold.
“Today’s the day,” came Zhukov’s voice as he crouched beside the foxhole the two of them were sitting uncomfortably in. While Stalin and Kolganov were freezing, tired and looked worse for wear, Zhukov on the other hand appeared vibrant, energetic even. The man was a born outdoorsman.
The Red Army officer looked at the two NKGB men and gave them his winningest smile. “Are you two ready?”
“Ready to get back home,” Kolganov muttered while Stalin said nothing but gave a perfunctory nod.
We’ll do our best to get you to the airport there, comrades. We’ve had some spies sneak into the city over the past few days and the Trotskyists are spread thin. Not enough men and too many areas to defend. We should take them with our greater numbers, let alone the element of surprise.”
“Any news from Moscow?” Stalin asked.
Zhukov shrugged. “More rumors and little more. Some say Sverdlov is dead and his body was paraded through the streets. Some say the same about Trotsky. Most say Trotsky is in control of the Kremlin but little else, and that he is entirely focused on hunting down Sverdlov whose whereabouts remain unknown. Supposedly there's a lot of fighting going on in Moscow right now but it could be hearsay and false information. So it remains to be seen what is truth and what is fabrication.”
“The truth is what we make it, Comrade Zhukov,” Stalin said in a flat tone.
Zhukov nodded at that but gave no verbal response. He checked his watch. “Alright, showtime.”
Zhukov rose, whistled and spun his hand in a circle three times. The signal given, many of the cavalry men laying low rose and went into the forest for their horses. Mounting them they brought their beasts to the edge of the tree line.
Zhukov, having mounted a horse himself brought over by an adjutant, spoke to them with a tone that brooked no disagreement.
“You two will follow in the second wave once we secure key points in the city and the airport. Do you understand?”
Both NKGB officers nodded.
“Good,” Zhukov said. “If you make it to Moscow, remember what my men and I did to get you there.”
“I give you my word, Comrade Brigade Commander, I will not forget your service to the Soviet Union,” Stalin said.
Zhukov nodded before turning his head to speak to a private with a radio. “Inform all units Crimson Snow is a go!”
As the private relayed the code word for the attack into the radio, Zhukov blew his whistle in one long blow as he urged his horse forward at a sprint. Hundreds of other cavalrymen followed their commander, their beasts of war snorting and neighing, the men atop shouting with their hands near their weapons. Kolganov wished them the best. If the Trotskyists were monitoring radio chatter they might hear the code word but may not realize what was to befall them. From every direction the 7th Cavalry Division attacked Yaroslavl, attempting to use surprise and their numbers to take it before the defenders could erect a dogged and bloody resistance.
Kolganov thanked the God he was not supposed to believe in that he was not in the first wave. He and Stalin sat there amongst the reserve cavalrymen, the mortar men and half the brigade’s machine gun units, waiting. They did not have to wait long for the sound of battle and its accompanied slaughter reached them.
The rapidity of machine gun fire, the earthshaking roar of artillery, the thump of mortars, and the sharp cracks of rifle fire soon reached them. He shivered again, this time in relief and trepidation. If the assault failed, their chance of reaching Moscow would all but disappear.
Kolganov glanced over the foxhole’s frozen rim and saw little but smoke and fog, the snow nearby trampled by beast and man alike. The gunfire continued unabated, yet it seemed farther away or was that merely his imagination or wishful thinking. Perhaps both. He almost asked the Boss, but Stalin was too intent on looking at the city, almost as if it could bend to his will by the gaze he gave it.
Soon enough man and animal began to reach the treeline, emerging from smoke and the dissipating fog. Medics rushed from the trenches to aid the wounded. One bloodied horse limped so badly from the battlefield that after its unconscious rider had been pulled from the saddle, his chest riddled with bullet holes yet amazingly was still alive, one of the other cavalrymen shot the horse in the head to put it out of its misery.
The gunfire increased and decreased in tempo like riding a bicycle up and down hills. Eventually it ceased all together. Almost twenty minutes passed, with barely a shot or two being faintly heard, when two cavalrymen atop their steeds arrived at the foxhole the NKGB men resided.
“Comrades, Comrade Brigade Commander Zhkuov cordially invites you to Yaroslavl.” The man’s bumpkin accent and mixing formal invitation with revolutionary rhetoric would have sent Kolganov’s aristocratic father into apoplexy. Considering Kolganov shot that bastard of a father with his own revolver, the commissar didn’t mind so much.
“The city is ours then?” Zhukov asked. “The Trotskyists are defeated?”
“Aye, Comrade People’s Commissar. Overconfident and undermanned, we took them quickly.”
“Very good.” The Boss looked at Kolganov. “Let’s go.”
Mounting the horse was awkward with the set-in stiffness of being half-frozen, but the two political officers managed. Soon enough Kolganov remembered how to grip the horse with his thighs and legs more tightly so as not to thrash about with each thundering step it took towards the newly liberated Yaroslavl. Kolganov noted with wry, but masked, humor that Stalin struggled more than he. While Kolgonov’s childhood had been raised as a nobleman’s son on a countryside manor in Southern Russia, Stalin’s origins of poverty and as a failed student of faith did not endear him to horse riding.
It did not take long for the two horses to enter Yaroslavl. Some buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes while several corpses littered the streets, mostly in the khaki garb of the Red Army. A few fires were even now being put out by work crews overseen by onlooking soldiers who were smoking in victory and seemed relieved to be alive.
Gunfire suddenly interrupted the almost serene atmosphere.
“What was that?” he asked? “Trotskyist remnants?”
“No, comrade commissar,” the cavalryman he rode with said, turning his head to be better heard. “Captured prisoners being liquidated.”
“Ah,” he said, shaking his head in firm approval. Enemies of the state, especially those of such low rank, did not even deserve the formality of a show trial. Summary execution was more effective and honed to the point that treason would not be tolerated. Not today, not henceforth.
Leaving the main road they trotted over to the city’s airfield which was a simple paved runway and a control tower. Several hangars were situated nearby. The guards at the gate waved them through though their focus was on their freshly captured machine gun nest as it was being cleaned of the dead men that had defended it barely an hour earlier.
“Is Zhukov here?” Kolganov heard Stalin ask the cavalryman he was with.
“Nyet, he’s at city hall.”
“Why isn't he here?” Stalin demanded in a tone that brooked no foolishness but the cavalryman just shrugged.
“I just follow orders, Comrade People’s Commissar. I don’t ask why.”
Stalin didn’t demean the soldier after that. How could he without looking like a hypocrite? The Soviet state had spent years enforcing a strict hierarchy to better cultivate socialism.
“Here we are,” Kolganov’s rider said. The two horses and their passengers had arrived at the nearest hangar at the end of the runway closest to the gate. Inside was a Kalinin K-5 and a pilot.
The pilot looked up from his work, he had been tinkering with the engine, and frowned. The man was impressively hideous, with a large bulbous nose riddled with red purple-red veins and he had more hair than any three monkeys.
“This them?” The man’s voice was gruff, uncultured.
“Yes, Pyotr. Go easy on them, they are important people,” one of the cavalrymen said.
“Bah, the only things I care more about than important people is wiping my ass after a shit and having a flask full of vodka to drink while I fly.”
Stalin and Kolganov were stunned. Few would dare utter such insults at them, let alone to their faces. Yet this Pyotr the Pilot, ugly hairy bastard he may be, seemed to have qualms who they were.
The cavalrymen laughed. “Sorry, comrades,” one of them said in a very unapologetic tone, “Pyotr is the only pilot that didn’t join the Trotskyists or get shot, so he’s your only ticket home.”
“Then he’ll do,” Stalin said, unperturbed now that he knew there was no other option.
“Get in,” Pyotr pointed back at the K-5 with an oil stained finger.
The two NKGB officers piled in the back, the K-5 was stuffed full of boxes with half the seats pulled out to make more room.
Kolganov’s gaze turned angry. “Are you a smuggler?” he demanded.
Pyotr put a fat cigar in his mouth, lit it with a match struck against his boot, and took a deep breath before blowing the smoke out. “Smuggler? Christ no, I’m merely a conveyor of desired goods for those who can pay.” Pyotr’s eyes hardened. “Is that going to be a problem, comrade?” The words were laced with disdain. Was Pyotr a counter-revolutionary? A secret Tsarist spy from Sakhalin? Kolganov would very much like to get the hairy brute to Lubyanka for a proper socialist ‘re-education.’
Kolganov opened his mouth to accuse the pilot but Stalin’s raised hand stopped him.
“Pyotr, yes?” The Boss looked at the man questionaly until the pilot nodded. “If you get us to Moscow in one piece I will forgive any past transgressions against the peasants and farmers of the Soviet Union. Get me to Moscow and you’ll receive an award.”
“Is that reward a piece of hot lead to the back of the skull?” Pyotr obviously wasn’t stupid. Kolganov had to give him credit for that.
“No, it will be in money and… the NKGB can be told to ignore any such illicit activities you may or may not do from time to time.”
“What’ll that cost me?” No, Pyotr clearly wasn’t stupid There was some coyness behind those dark brown eyes.
“Nothing more than getting us to Moscow safely. That and the NKGB might call upon you for your services. Is that agreeable with you?”
Pyotr took a long drag on his cigar, the end flaring red. After exhaling an impressive amount of smoke in their direction the pilot nodded. “Aye, that works for me.” Pyotr turned back into the pilot seat. “Now pucker up and shut up. Let me do my goddamn job.”
The K-5’s engine roared to life. It rolled towards the runway, turning to take off. Pyotr throttled the engine, roaring louder and louder as it gained more and more speed.
Zhukov, pale as a ghost, mumbled so quietly Kolganov knew he wasn’t supposed to hear it. “I hate flying. I really fucking hate it.”
Soon enough the plane had picked up enough speed and rose into the air, bucking slightly against an easterly wind.
“How long until we reach the capital?” Stalin asked through clenched lips.
“Two hours or so.” Pyotr turned around and smiled at them, revealing a mouth of teeth so yellow they might as well have been covered in mustard. “Lay back, take a nap. If a Trotskyist fighter plane shoots at us, they’ll likely kill us before you wake up. Enjoy!”
Pyotr laughed as fed the engine more gas as the plane headed southwest.
The following two hours were rife with fear from the NKGB passengers. Twice they saw planes through the window view-ports. Once was a civilian plane like theirs, heading northeast, likely trying to avoid the civil war that gripped so much of the country. The other was a more terrifying experience, witnessed halfway to Moscow.
Five fighter craft, all biplanes, were shooting at one another. Through the confusing twists and turns of their dogfighting one of the planes who shot down. It spiraled downward, smoke trailing after it. Kolganov watched it crash into the ground in horrid fascination. He didn’t know whether to yell in despair or cheer in victory. From here it was impossible to tell who fought for who.
Thankfully the biplanes did not turn their attention to the slower and defenseless K-5. It took another hour to reach Moscow airspace. While still over the outskirts of Moscow, fires and rubble were seen from even here, Pyotr pulled his headset to the side.
“Eh, boss man. Got someone on the radio.”
“Who are they?”
“Don’t rightly know, but they’re behind us by a kilometer or two and they have us in their sights if we give the wrong answer. They’re asking, ‘Who do you support?’ Want me to lie or try and lose them?”
“Can you lose them and land us safely?” Stalin demanded.
Pyotr shrugged as if asked about the weather. “Don’t know, probably can’t.”
Stalin sighed. “Give me the headset.” Pyotr all but tossed it back to Stalin.
“This is Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, People’s Commissar of State Security. I serve the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union. I serve Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov, the true Premier of the Soviet Union.” Stalin tossed the headset back.
“People’s Commissar,” Kolganov hissed. “You might have just gotten us killed!”
Stalin glanced at him and shrugged. “Better to die quickly than to be tortured by Yagoda and however many wretched dogs that ran to him with their tails tucked between their legs. We may have taught them too well in their craft. Better to die in crashing flames than be interrogated with their instruments.”
Kolganov wanted to refute that but knew he couldn’t. Yagoda was indeed a butcher, one whose personality was hidden beneath a facade of brutality. No wonder Trotsky had risked seducing the commissar into his coup. What did the Jew offer Yagoda? The NKGB? Perhaps more?
The K-5 was directed to the nearest airport, its wheels skidding off the tarmac moments later. The landing was accompanied by the loud screeching of landing, all the while the smell of burnt rubber filled his nostrils.
When the plane landed, three NAZ-As approached. One bore NKGB insignia while the other two were painted in Red Army khaki. Stalin and Kolgaonv pulled out their Tokarevs. Pyotr, Kolganov saw, pulled out a revolver, checking to ensure six rounds were loaded.
The three vehicles pulled up to the plane, with most of the passengers jumping out to use the vehicles as cover in case the plane was full of enemy combatants. One NKGB officer in the dark blue field uniform approached, hands raised. Kolganov noted the man had a bandage wrapped around his head, part of it stained a reddish-brown. The wound plus the dirtied uniform showed this was no mere pencil-pusher secret policeman.
“Comrades!” the man called out. “Exit the plane or my men will open fire.” As if to emphasize, a half dozen NKGB and Red Army men raised their Mosin-Nagants or pistols and aimed it at the K-5.
Kolganov looked at Stalin who only shrugged. “Let’s see if we live or not, eh, Andrei Fyodorrovich.” Stalin opened the plane door and exited first. Kolganov felt that the Boss was shrewd in doing so. He’d be the first to die, and least to suffer, if they were shot at, and if they were friendly they wouldn’t shoot such a recognizable official.
Kolganov trailed immediately after Stalin, hoping to use the stocky Georgian as a shield of sorts if need be. It was unfortunate the Man of Steel only had flesh and cloth to shield Kolganov. Thankfully, no one opened fire at them, nor at Pyotr who followed warily after them.
The NKGB officer walked up to Stalin and saluted. “Comrade People’s Commissar, it is a relief to see you alive.” The man even sounded like he meant it. “I am Commissar Vasilij Bulba.”
“Commissar Bulba, a pleasure. It is good to be alive.” Stalin made a show of looking at the parts of Moscow surrounding the airport. Thick plumes of black smoke darkened an already gray sky. “What’s the situation of the coup?”
The NKGB officer smiled. “We just retook the Kremlin this morning.” The man’s smile faded. “We lost a lot of good men doing it.”
“Heroes of the Revolution, each and every one. Now what of Sverdlov? Yagoda? Trotsky?”
“The premier is safe. He was whisked away to the sewers by his bodyguards. That traitorous swine Trotsky never had him, despite the lies issued across the radio. Yagoda committed suicide in Lubyanka minutes before we could capture him. As for Trotsky,” the man’s smile returned with a vengeance. “We arrested him. Captured him as he tried to flee.”
“Excellent!” Stalin’s burst of emotion surprised Kolganov, but only for a moment. “Take me to the Kremlin, I need to see Sverdlov.”
“That is why I came, Comrade People’s Commissar. The premier has already been made aware of your arrival. You’re expected at the Kremlin.”
“Sverdlov expects me? Then let’s get to it, eh, comrade commissar?” Stalin looked at Kolganov and winked, relief flooding through the younger man. “Comrade Sverdlov is not one to keep waiting.”
“Aye, he’s not,” Kolganov said, throat drying as his mind raced through all the scenarios that could play out. Hopefully Sverdlov doesn't think Stalin, and by association me, had anything to do with the coup. If he even suspects it, no matter how incorrect it would be, then we’re dead.
Kolganov shook his head. Paranoia was a hell of a thing. He only hoped Sverdlov wasn’t too afflicted with it, but judging by the ruins of Moscow they passed on the way to the Kremlin, which itself was half-destroyed, he wasn’t going to hold onto that hope.
Will it be our corpses that will make it so? He shuddered at the thought.
Kolganov lifted his head higher up, seeing Yaroslavl but a few hundred meters away though the city was blanketed with a thin fog. The city’s buildings, largely visible despite the fog, were akin to an island of humanity in the vastness of the Russian landscape. Looking to his left and right, soldiers of the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, 7th Cavalry Division were hunkered down in carefully hidden ditches, foxholes and ad-hoc trenches hastily dug over the last few days. Their horses were sheltered in the forests, hiding behind the thick foliage in case any sharp eyed lookout spotted them.
Stalin was sitting next to Kolganov, droplets frozen on the man’s mustache. Looking miserable more than he had ever seen him, Stalin still radiated a sense of lethality. Though he appeared out of his element as a glorified mob boss wearing an NKGB uniform, Kolganov knew that Stalin was by far the most dangerous man in the country. Perhaps only Sverdlov’s ruthlessness could match Stalin’s.
If the premier was even alive that was. If not, then who would take the reins of power from Trotsky’s clutches? Kolganov did not know but he knew that if Stalin were somehow able to make himself the Soviet Union’s newest dictator, it would be atop a mountain of corpses. Kolganov shivered, the effort caused by fear rather than the cold.
“Today’s the day,” came Zhukov’s voice as he crouched beside the foxhole the two of them were sitting uncomfortably in. While Stalin and Kolganov were freezing, tired and looked worse for wear, Zhukov on the other hand appeared vibrant, energetic even. The man was a born outdoorsman.
The Red Army officer looked at the two NKGB men and gave them his winningest smile. “Are you two ready?”
“Ready to get back home,” Kolganov muttered while Stalin said nothing but gave a perfunctory nod.
We’ll do our best to get you to the airport there, comrades. We’ve had some spies sneak into the city over the past few days and the Trotskyists are spread thin. Not enough men and too many areas to defend. We should take them with our greater numbers, let alone the element of surprise.”
“Any news from Moscow?” Stalin asked.
Zhukov shrugged. “More rumors and little more. Some say Sverdlov is dead and his body was paraded through the streets. Some say the same about Trotsky. Most say Trotsky is in control of the Kremlin but little else, and that he is entirely focused on hunting down Sverdlov whose whereabouts remain unknown. Supposedly there's a lot of fighting going on in Moscow right now but it could be hearsay and false information. So it remains to be seen what is truth and what is fabrication.”
“The truth is what we make it, Comrade Zhukov,” Stalin said in a flat tone.
Zhukov nodded at that but gave no verbal response. He checked his watch. “Alright, showtime.”
Zhukov rose, whistled and spun his hand in a circle three times. The signal given, many of the cavalry men laying low rose and went into the forest for their horses. Mounting them they brought their beasts to the edge of the tree line.
Zhukov, having mounted a horse himself brought over by an adjutant, spoke to them with a tone that brooked no disagreement.
“You two will follow in the second wave once we secure key points in the city and the airport. Do you understand?”
Both NKGB officers nodded.
“Good,” Zhukov said. “If you make it to Moscow, remember what my men and I did to get you there.”
“I give you my word, Comrade Brigade Commander, I will not forget your service to the Soviet Union,” Stalin said.
Zhukov nodded before turning his head to speak to a private with a radio. “Inform all units Crimson Snow is a go!”
As the private relayed the code word for the attack into the radio, Zhukov blew his whistle in one long blow as he urged his horse forward at a sprint. Hundreds of other cavalrymen followed their commander, their beasts of war snorting and neighing, the men atop shouting with their hands near their weapons. Kolganov wished them the best. If the Trotskyists were monitoring radio chatter they might hear the code word but may not realize what was to befall them. From every direction the 7th Cavalry Division attacked Yaroslavl, attempting to use surprise and their numbers to take it before the defenders could erect a dogged and bloody resistance.
Kolganov thanked the God he was not supposed to believe in that he was not in the first wave. He and Stalin sat there amongst the reserve cavalrymen, the mortar men and half the brigade’s machine gun units, waiting. They did not have to wait long for the sound of battle and its accompanied slaughter reached them.
The rapidity of machine gun fire, the earthshaking roar of artillery, the thump of mortars, and the sharp cracks of rifle fire soon reached them. He shivered again, this time in relief and trepidation. If the assault failed, their chance of reaching Moscow would all but disappear.
Kolganov glanced over the foxhole’s frozen rim and saw little but smoke and fog, the snow nearby trampled by beast and man alike. The gunfire continued unabated, yet it seemed farther away or was that merely his imagination or wishful thinking. Perhaps both. He almost asked the Boss, but Stalin was too intent on looking at the city, almost as if it could bend to his will by the gaze he gave it.
Soon enough man and animal began to reach the treeline, emerging from smoke and the dissipating fog. Medics rushed from the trenches to aid the wounded. One bloodied horse limped so badly from the battlefield that after its unconscious rider had been pulled from the saddle, his chest riddled with bullet holes yet amazingly was still alive, one of the other cavalrymen shot the horse in the head to put it out of its misery.
The gunfire increased and decreased in tempo like riding a bicycle up and down hills. Eventually it ceased all together. Almost twenty minutes passed, with barely a shot or two being faintly heard, when two cavalrymen atop their steeds arrived at the foxhole the NKGB men resided.
“Comrades, Comrade Brigade Commander Zhkuov cordially invites you to Yaroslavl.” The man’s bumpkin accent and mixing formal invitation with revolutionary rhetoric would have sent Kolganov’s aristocratic father into apoplexy. Considering Kolganov shot that bastard of a father with his own revolver, the commissar didn’t mind so much.
“The city is ours then?” Zhukov asked. “The Trotskyists are defeated?”
“Aye, Comrade People’s Commissar. Overconfident and undermanned, we took them quickly.”
“Very good.” The Boss looked at Kolganov. “Let’s go.”
Mounting the horse was awkward with the set-in stiffness of being half-frozen, but the two political officers managed. Soon enough Kolganov remembered how to grip the horse with his thighs and legs more tightly so as not to thrash about with each thundering step it took towards the newly liberated Yaroslavl. Kolganov noted with wry, but masked, humor that Stalin struggled more than he. While Kolgonov’s childhood had been raised as a nobleman’s son on a countryside manor in Southern Russia, Stalin’s origins of poverty and as a failed student of faith did not endear him to horse riding.
It did not take long for the two horses to enter Yaroslavl. Some buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes while several corpses littered the streets, mostly in the khaki garb of the Red Army. A few fires were even now being put out by work crews overseen by onlooking soldiers who were smoking in victory and seemed relieved to be alive.
Gunfire suddenly interrupted the almost serene atmosphere.
“What was that?” he asked? “Trotskyist remnants?”
“No, comrade commissar,” the cavalryman he rode with said, turning his head to be better heard. “Captured prisoners being liquidated.”
“Ah,” he said, shaking his head in firm approval. Enemies of the state, especially those of such low rank, did not even deserve the formality of a show trial. Summary execution was more effective and honed to the point that treason would not be tolerated. Not today, not henceforth.
Leaving the main road they trotted over to the city’s airfield which was a simple paved runway and a control tower. Several hangars were situated nearby. The guards at the gate waved them through though their focus was on their freshly captured machine gun nest as it was being cleaned of the dead men that had defended it barely an hour earlier.
“Is Zhukov here?” Kolganov heard Stalin ask the cavalryman he was with.
“Nyet, he’s at city hall.”
“Why isn't he here?” Stalin demanded in a tone that brooked no foolishness but the cavalryman just shrugged.
“I just follow orders, Comrade People’s Commissar. I don’t ask why.”
Stalin didn’t demean the soldier after that. How could he without looking like a hypocrite? The Soviet state had spent years enforcing a strict hierarchy to better cultivate socialism.
“Here we are,” Kolganov’s rider said. The two horses and their passengers had arrived at the nearest hangar at the end of the runway closest to the gate. Inside was a Kalinin K-5 and a pilot.
The pilot looked up from his work, he had been tinkering with the engine, and frowned. The man was impressively hideous, with a large bulbous nose riddled with red purple-red veins and he had more hair than any three monkeys.
“This them?” The man’s voice was gruff, uncultured.
“Yes, Pyotr. Go easy on them, they are important people,” one of the cavalrymen said.
“Bah, the only things I care more about than important people is wiping my ass after a shit and having a flask full of vodka to drink while I fly.”
Stalin and Kolganov were stunned. Few would dare utter such insults at them, let alone to their faces. Yet this Pyotr the Pilot, ugly hairy bastard he may be, seemed to have qualms who they were.
The cavalrymen laughed. “Sorry, comrades,” one of them said in a very unapologetic tone, “Pyotr is the only pilot that didn’t join the Trotskyists or get shot, so he’s your only ticket home.”
“Then he’ll do,” Stalin said, unperturbed now that he knew there was no other option.
“Get in,” Pyotr pointed back at the K-5 with an oil stained finger.
The two NKGB officers piled in the back, the K-5 was stuffed full of boxes with half the seats pulled out to make more room.
Kolganov’s gaze turned angry. “Are you a smuggler?” he demanded.
Pyotr put a fat cigar in his mouth, lit it with a match struck against his boot, and took a deep breath before blowing the smoke out. “Smuggler? Christ no, I’m merely a conveyor of desired goods for those who can pay.” Pyotr’s eyes hardened. “Is that going to be a problem, comrade?” The words were laced with disdain. Was Pyotr a counter-revolutionary? A secret Tsarist spy from Sakhalin? Kolganov would very much like to get the hairy brute to Lubyanka for a proper socialist ‘re-education.’
Kolganov opened his mouth to accuse the pilot but Stalin’s raised hand stopped him.
“Pyotr, yes?” The Boss looked at the man questionaly until the pilot nodded. “If you get us to Moscow in one piece I will forgive any past transgressions against the peasants and farmers of the Soviet Union. Get me to Moscow and you’ll receive an award.”
“Is that reward a piece of hot lead to the back of the skull?” Pyotr obviously wasn’t stupid. Kolganov had to give him credit for that.
“No, it will be in money and… the NKGB can be told to ignore any such illicit activities you may or may not do from time to time.”
“What’ll that cost me?” No, Pyotr clearly wasn’t stupid There was some coyness behind those dark brown eyes.
“Nothing more than getting us to Moscow safely. That and the NKGB might call upon you for your services. Is that agreeable with you?”
Pyotr took a long drag on his cigar, the end flaring red. After exhaling an impressive amount of smoke in their direction the pilot nodded. “Aye, that works for me.” Pyotr turned back into the pilot seat. “Now pucker up and shut up. Let me do my goddamn job.”
The K-5’s engine roared to life. It rolled towards the runway, turning to take off. Pyotr throttled the engine, roaring louder and louder as it gained more and more speed.
Zhukov, pale as a ghost, mumbled so quietly Kolganov knew he wasn’t supposed to hear it. “I hate flying. I really fucking hate it.”
Soon enough the plane had picked up enough speed and rose into the air, bucking slightly against an easterly wind.
“How long until we reach the capital?” Stalin asked through clenched lips.
“Two hours or so.” Pyotr turned around and smiled at them, revealing a mouth of teeth so yellow they might as well have been covered in mustard. “Lay back, take a nap. If a Trotskyist fighter plane shoots at us, they’ll likely kill us before you wake up. Enjoy!”
Pyotr laughed as fed the engine more gas as the plane headed southwest.
The following two hours were rife with fear from the NKGB passengers. Twice they saw planes through the window view-ports. Once was a civilian plane like theirs, heading northeast, likely trying to avoid the civil war that gripped so much of the country. The other was a more terrifying experience, witnessed halfway to Moscow.
Five fighter craft, all biplanes, were shooting at one another. Through the confusing twists and turns of their dogfighting one of the planes who shot down. It spiraled downward, smoke trailing after it. Kolganov watched it crash into the ground in horrid fascination. He didn’t know whether to yell in despair or cheer in victory. From here it was impossible to tell who fought for who.
Thankfully the biplanes did not turn their attention to the slower and defenseless K-5. It took another hour to reach Moscow airspace. While still over the outskirts of Moscow, fires and rubble were seen from even here, Pyotr pulled his headset to the side.
“Eh, boss man. Got someone on the radio.”
“Who are they?”
“Don’t rightly know, but they’re behind us by a kilometer or two and they have us in their sights if we give the wrong answer. They’re asking, ‘Who do you support?’ Want me to lie or try and lose them?”
“Can you lose them and land us safely?” Stalin demanded.
Pyotr shrugged as if asked about the weather. “Don’t know, probably can’t.”
Stalin sighed. “Give me the headset.” Pyotr all but tossed it back to Stalin.
“This is Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, People’s Commissar of State Security. I serve the peasants and workers of the Soviet Union. I serve Yakov Mikhailovich Sverdlov, the true Premier of the Soviet Union.” Stalin tossed the headset back.
“People’s Commissar,” Kolganov hissed. “You might have just gotten us killed!”
Stalin glanced at him and shrugged. “Better to die quickly than to be tortured by Yagoda and however many wretched dogs that ran to him with their tails tucked between their legs. We may have taught them too well in their craft. Better to die in crashing flames than be interrogated with their instruments.”
Kolganov wanted to refute that but knew he couldn’t. Yagoda was indeed a butcher, one whose personality was hidden beneath a facade of brutality. No wonder Trotsky had risked seducing the commissar into his coup. What did the Jew offer Yagoda? The NKGB? Perhaps more?
The K-5 was directed to the nearest airport, its wheels skidding off the tarmac moments later. The landing was accompanied by the loud screeching of landing, all the while the smell of burnt rubber filled his nostrils.
When the plane landed, three NAZ-As approached. One bore NKGB insignia while the other two were painted in Red Army khaki. Stalin and Kolgaonv pulled out their Tokarevs. Pyotr, Kolganov saw, pulled out a revolver, checking to ensure six rounds were loaded.
The three vehicles pulled up to the plane, with most of the passengers jumping out to use the vehicles as cover in case the plane was full of enemy combatants. One NKGB officer in the dark blue field uniform approached, hands raised. Kolganov noted the man had a bandage wrapped around his head, part of it stained a reddish-brown. The wound plus the dirtied uniform showed this was no mere pencil-pusher secret policeman.
“Comrades!” the man called out. “Exit the plane or my men will open fire.” As if to emphasize, a half dozen NKGB and Red Army men raised their Mosin-Nagants or pistols and aimed it at the K-5.
Kolganov looked at Stalin who only shrugged. “Let’s see if we live or not, eh, Andrei Fyodorrovich.” Stalin opened the plane door and exited first. Kolganov felt that the Boss was shrewd in doing so. He’d be the first to die, and least to suffer, if they were shot at, and if they were friendly they wouldn’t shoot such a recognizable official.
Kolganov trailed immediately after Stalin, hoping to use the stocky Georgian as a shield of sorts if need be. It was unfortunate the Man of Steel only had flesh and cloth to shield Kolganov. Thankfully, no one opened fire at them, nor at Pyotr who followed warily after them.
The NKGB officer walked up to Stalin and saluted. “Comrade People’s Commissar, it is a relief to see you alive.” The man even sounded like he meant it. “I am Commissar Vasilij Bulba.”
“Commissar Bulba, a pleasure. It is good to be alive.” Stalin made a show of looking at the parts of Moscow surrounding the airport. Thick plumes of black smoke darkened an already gray sky. “What’s the situation of the coup?”
The NKGB officer smiled. “We just retook the Kremlin this morning.” The man’s smile faded. “We lost a lot of good men doing it.”
“Heroes of the Revolution, each and every one. Now what of Sverdlov? Yagoda? Trotsky?”
“The premier is safe. He was whisked away to the sewers by his bodyguards. That traitorous swine Trotsky never had him, despite the lies issued across the radio. Yagoda committed suicide in Lubyanka minutes before we could capture him. As for Trotsky,” the man’s smile returned with a vengeance. “We arrested him. Captured him as he tried to flee.”
“Excellent!” Stalin’s burst of emotion surprised Kolganov, but only for a moment. “Take me to the Kremlin, I need to see Sverdlov.”
“That is why I came, Comrade People’s Commissar. The premier has already been made aware of your arrival. You’re expected at the Kremlin.”
“Sverdlov expects me? Then let’s get to it, eh, comrade commissar?” Stalin looked at Kolganov and winked, relief flooding through the younger man. “Comrade Sverdlov is not one to keep waiting.”
“Aye, he’s not,” Kolganov said, throat drying as his mind raced through all the scenarios that could play out. Hopefully Sverdlov doesn't think Stalin, and by association me, had anything to do with the coup. If he even suspects it, no matter how incorrect it would be, then we’re dead.
Kolganov shook his head. Paranoia was a hell of a thing. He only hoped Sverdlov wasn’t too afflicted with it, but judging by the ruins of Moscow they passed on the way to the Kremlin, which itself was half-destroyed, he wasn’t going to hold onto that hope.
Vienna, Austria
Republic of Austria
June 1932
Republic of Austria
June 1932
Leon Trotsky, minister of the Soviet Armed Forces, has been arrested by pro-Sverdlov forces. Though the Trotsky Coup, sometimes dubbed the May Uprising or May Revolution, has its ringleader imprisoned, Trotskyist resistance remains. From Leningrad to Baku, from Kiev to Vladivostok, civil war continues to rattle within the Soviet Union. Noted fighting in Sverdlovgrad has continued despite-
Simon Golmayer frowned. Sverdlovgrad… Where in God’s Name is that? He walked over to the large atlas in the corner of his office, a gift from Judith’s father several years ago before he passed away, and looked closely at the major cities marked in the vast goliath that was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
“Ah!” he said triumphantly, finding the city near the Volga in southern Russia. Satisfied with the knowledge, he returned to reading the newspaper, skimming through the rest of it before setting it down.
“Coffee, dear?” his wife Judith asked, poking her head into the office.
“Yes, please. That would be wonderful.”
She refilled his mug of coffee, the steam soaring upward as the rich smell filled the small room. Blowing on the coffee to cool it, he sipped and gave a satisfied sigh, much to his his wife’s amusement. The coffee was far better than the ersatz filth that he had to suffer drinking during the Great War and in the years immediately following it. A simple thing, yes, but a sign that things had improved following the dark days of 1918.
He frowned. Unfortunately, not everything had improved. Resentment and desperation still filled the streets of Vienna, latching itself to those who felt disillusioned and downtrodden. In fact, in many ways, things were becoming worse. The Great Depression merely washed away the facade constructed during the economic recovery of the mid-1920s.
He looked outside his window with tired wariness. No Sturmkorps or Sturmwache marched down the streets of his particular Leopoldstadt neighborhood. At least, not yet.
Since their electoral victory seven months ago, the Fatherland Front’s Sturmkorps had lessened their presence outside of scheduled marches and political rallies, especially in well-to-do neighborhoods that largely supported them following the collapse of the Christian Social Party’s fortunes. Yet it wasn’t Dollfuss’ goons that Simon kept an eye out for. The Sturmwache, Hitler’s Henchmen, were the ones who truly worried Simon and the other Jews whom he knew. The militant Sozinats, wearing blue-gray clothing of a military cut and carrying all sorts of weapons from brass knuckles to guns and everything in between, were the true terrors of Vienna’s Jewish community.
Simon himself identified as an Austrian first, a Jew second, but he might as well have been speaking Hebrew and wearing a yarmulke with a Star of David tattooed on his forehead for all the good that self-identification did for him. To the Sozinats, he was nothing but a money-grubbing parasite whose mere presence infected the national community. It was sickening, but it was the reality every Jew lived with in Austria. Antisemitism had always existed in Austria, but following the collapse of the empire and the hardships placed upon the country following the Treaty of Saint-Germain it seemed even people who before the war would have balked at the anti-Jewish rhetoric filling the nation’s dialogue now joined in the hateful vitriol.
Sighing again, Simon knew he couldn’t do anything to change it. He may not be able to thrive in fascist Austria, but he could at least survive until the current political storm had passed. And it would indeed pass, he prayed. It always did. Politicians come and go with startling frequency but people, community, that endured in spite of all the despicable efforts of bigots. One day, Simon knew with fervent certainty, the names of Engelbert Dollfuss and Adolf Hitler would be a mere footnote in history, the harbingers of a dark time for the Fatherland, but a time that had since passed and one Austria emerged from it better than before.
It would happen. He knew it.
But what if it doesn’t? What if the fascists are here to stay?
Simon quelled the thought as he finished his coffee. He rose from his desk, gathered the various documents and financial ledgers he had been auditing the past few weeks, and left his office with a briefcase in tow. Outside the small room, he walked through the hallway to the kitchen. Judith was sipping her own coffee, reading a novel, while Felix and Hannah both worked on their breakfasts. Simon shook his head in amazement. They ate so much yet it seemed to go nowhere but fuel their growth.
Felix was eighteen, broad shouldered but with a kind soul. He was helping his younger sister Hannah, who would turn fifteen soon and nearing womanhood with each passing day, with her arithmetic homework. Simon could have helped her, and typically did, but he had to rush to work today. He dared not show up late as the punishments for doing so had become increasingly harsh, either with heavily docked pay or even termination of employment.
Looking at the two children who still lived with him and Judith, it amazed him how fast time passed. It only seemed the day before yesterday that Simon had been sitting at this very table, watching the twins Richard and Abraham compete to see who could eat the fastest, Felix who had been but a toddler and Hannah had not even been conceived yet. Now… now things had changed drastically. Abraham was dead, buried somewhere in the Italian Alps, Richard lived his own life, having moved out years ago and married a sweet gentile girl named Mia Kleinbauer. Simon did not have grandchildren, yet, but he suspected he would soon as their wedding had only been a year ago and they were still in sort of honeymoon phase where they could not keep their hands off one another.
Felix was soon to go to university, wishing to go to the Vienna University of Economics and Business. He wanted to own his own supply store chain one day, which Simon found commendable. Hannah on the other hand, his quiet and bookish little girl, was quickly becoming a woman. He dreaded the day a boy came calling after her. Would he shake the boy’s hand or pummel him into the ground? Simon shrugged. It would not happen today, nor tomorrow. The day after, perhaps, but he will worry about it then.
Now he needed to get to work. “I’m off. See you all tonight.”
The chorus of goodbyes was only interrupted by a reminder from Judith.
“Richard and Mia will be stopping by tonight for dinner. Around seven. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t!” he smiled, kissing her affectionately on the cheek before donning his homburg and walking out of the house.
The morning was cool, but it promised to be a warm day. Viennese summers were not as bad as others he had read about, the ones in Texas made him shudder at the thought, but they were not the most enjoyable, especially on cloudless days of which today so far proved to be. Walking along the street he had lived on for decades, he whistled tunelessly, nodding at several other well-dressed men, and even a few women, who were on their way to work.
He had made it only a few houses down when a familiar voice spoke up.
“Don’t bother even saying hello anymore, eh, Simon? Some would consider that rude.” Half the words were slurred by alcohol. Simon looked at Fritz Hanke, the man who had been his best friend for years, and winced at the state of him. Sitting on a chair beside his front door, Fritz was unshaven with brown hair unkempt and clothing that looked as if it hadn’t gotten washed in a few days. He looked far worse for wear than Simon was accustomed to seeing, though admittedly he hadn't seen much of his friend lately over the past nine months, ever since Fritz had been let go from Creditanstalt in the second round of layoffs.
“Hey, Fritz, didn’t see you there” Simon tried for lightheartedness. Fritz’s scowl told him that he failed.
“Didn’t see me? How could you not?” Fritz’s bloodshot eyes focused on him, all that anger, all that despair had been looking for a worthy target to vent frustration on and it had found Simon instead. “You don’t see me because you still have a job, because you can still provide for your family, because I’m nothing but a God-fearing Austrian man down on his luck and therefore might as well be invisible. A piece of trash cast to the curb, is that right?"
“Fritz, buddy, you know that’s not what I meant.”
Fritz glared at him for a moment before softening. “I know, I know, it’s just been hard is all.Three kids to feed and a wife who is working half the day away for scraps.” Fritz sighed. “I should be more grateful. Those scraps Greta is getting is what is allowing us to live. Enough to feed us and not much more than that.”
Simon nodded in sympathy. Fritz wasn’t the only person to lose their job at the bank. Following Creditanstalt's announcement that its finances were unsound, nearly a third of the staff had been laid off or their hours reduced. Once the Fatherland Front-Sozinat coalition came to power, as part of the bailout package that had lingered in parliament for nearly a year under Chancellor Seitz, every salary and hourly position had seen wages frozen or reduced by five percent as a cost-saving measure. The entire board had been terminated and their shares liquidated to pay off the bank’s enormous debt. The bank's president and majority-stake owner, Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild, had to sell his shares split between Österreichische Nationalbank and the government, with the latter taking partial ownership of Creditanstalt to help alleviate some of its fiscal pressures. Such government oversight, however, led to some severe cuts to help balance the books.
One such cut was job security. He opened his mouth to excuse himself when another man approached. He was young, good-looking, and had a confident swagger that would have endeared him to the ladies. What dismayed Simon was none of that, but the uniform he wore. Blue-gray with a wolf’s head pin on his lapel. An armband of black, white and red bore the Krückenkreuz in all its stark bigotry.
The Sturmwache man waved at them. “Good morning!” he said. In one hand he carried a stack of fliers. Simon could guess what they had written on them. The Sozinat handed both of them a flier. Simon glanced at it. It was, as he figured, a propaganda piece. It featured five men, Aryans with blond or light brown hair and blue eyes. One was dressed in factory dungarees and holding a wrench. Another was dressed in farmer coveralls, holding a pitchfork. There was a suited businessman, briefcase and all, while the fourth figure wore the medical white garb of a doctor. The fifth man, the centerpiece, was a soldier. All were reaching up towards a Krückenkreuz with the words Strength through Unity plastered above it.
A bit on the nose, perhaps, but Simon had to admit it would have been effective if he were the target audience. Not being so, he crumpled up the flier before the Sozinat’s eyes and tossed it on the ground contemptuously, taking satisfaction at the man’s momentary surprise. Few had likely resisted the fascist rhetoric so openly in the man’s presence since Dollfuss had become chancellor.
The Sturmman looked at him with hooded eyes. “I should have known a damn kike like you would live here amongst your betters, disturbing their peace like a snake in the grass.”
Simon slowly positioned himself for a confrontation. “The only person here disturbing the peace is you.”
“Oh, yeah? Well then, how bout we settle that.”
“Yes, let’s.” Simon’s refusal to back down, directly contradicting the Sozinat view that Jews were sniveling cowards. Simon may not have fought for long on the frontlines down in Romania, but he was not one to back down from a fight. Bullies like the Sozinats preferred to antagonize helpless victims rather than someone who could go toe-to-toe with them.
The little fascist must have sensed it and took a step back. He would have been too young to fight in the war and though he might have acquired some experience in street brawls and attacking the rallies of rival political parties, it paled to what one experienced in the field while artillery thundered and machineguns hammered away.
Looking to his left and right, not seeing any more of his Austrofascist comrades on the street, the Sozinat snarled and turned around. “You’ll get what you deserve one day, Jew. The Party never forgets a slight!”
Simon held his tongue, not wishing to inflame the situation just as it was being resolved. He watched the SW man walk around the corner of the block before breathing easy.
“Picking a fight with those men isn’t wise, Simon.”
“Maybe not,” Simon snapped in annoyance, ”But at least I stood up for myself. Thanks for the help,” he said, words dripping with venomous sarcasm. Immediately after having said them he regretted it. His friend’s face soured. Simon opened his mouth to apologize but Fritz spoke first.
“I think you should leave, Simon. Go on to your job, the same damn place that discarded me like spoiled food. Leave.”
“Fritz, I’m sorry.” Simon reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. He pulled out a fresh 20 krone banknote. He hated to part with it but he wanted to make amends. “Here, take your family out to dinner tonight”
“I don’t want you goddamn charity.” Fritz said, slapping Simon’s hand away. Fritz’s face turned reddish-purple with anger and when he spoke, fumes of cheap wine filled Simon’s nostrils. “Get. Out. Of. Here. I don’t need any of your stinking charity. You’re not better than me!”
Simon stuck the banknote back in wallet, turned about face as if he were still in the army and walked away. As he neared the end of the street, he kept an eye out for the Sozinat man but he was long gone, likely off to terrorize another innocent less likely to confront him. As he turned the corner, he looked back at his friend. Fritz Hanke, once a genial, polite man who cared little if someone was Jew or gentile, had picked up the flier Simon had crumpled and let fall to the ground. To Simon’s quiet dismay, his friend was looking at it intently, as if the propaganda there could solve all his woes.
Simon sighed. Another good man lost to the madness of extremism.
Simon Golmayer frowned. Sverdlovgrad… Where in God’s Name is that? He walked over to the large atlas in the corner of his office, a gift from Judith’s father several years ago before he passed away, and looked closely at the major cities marked in the vast goliath that was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
“Ah!” he said triumphantly, finding the city near the Volga in southern Russia. Satisfied with the knowledge, he returned to reading the newspaper, skimming through the rest of it before setting it down.
“Coffee, dear?” his wife Judith asked, poking her head into the office.
“Yes, please. That would be wonderful.”
She refilled his mug of coffee, the steam soaring upward as the rich smell filled the small room. Blowing on the coffee to cool it, he sipped and gave a satisfied sigh, much to his his wife’s amusement. The coffee was far better than the ersatz filth that he had to suffer drinking during the Great War and in the years immediately following it. A simple thing, yes, but a sign that things had improved following the dark days of 1918.
He frowned. Unfortunately, not everything had improved. Resentment and desperation still filled the streets of Vienna, latching itself to those who felt disillusioned and downtrodden. In fact, in many ways, things were becoming worse. The Great Depression merely washed away the facade constructed during the economic recovery of the mid-1920s.
He looked outside his window with tired wariness. No Sturmkorps or Sturmwache marched down the streets of his particular Leopoldstadt neighborhood. At least, not yet.
Since their electoral victory seven months ago, the Fatherland Front’s Sturmkorps had lessened their presence outside of scheduled marches and political rallies, especially in well-to-do neighborhoods that largely supported them following the collapse of the Christian Social Party’s fortunes. Yet it wasn’t Dollfuss’ goons that Simon kept an eye out for. The Sturmwache, Hitler’s Henchmen, were the ones who truly worried Simon and the other Jews whom he knew. The militant Sozinats, wearing blue-gray clothing of a military cut and carrying all sorts of weapons from brass knuckles to guns and everything in between, were the true terrors of Vienna’s Jewish community.
Simon himself identified as an Austrian first, a Jew second, but he might as well have been speaking Hebrew and wearing a yarmulke with a Star of David tattooed on his forehead for all the good that self-identification did for him. To the Sozinats, he was nothing but a money-grubbing parasite whose mere presence infected the national community. It was sickening, but it was the reality every Jew lived with in Austria. Antisemitism had always existed in Austria, but following the collapse of the empire and the hardships placed upon the country following the Treaty of Saint-Germain it seemed even people who before the war would have balked at the anti-Jewish rhetoric filling the nation’s dialogue now joined in the hateful vitriol.
Sighing again, Simon knew he couldn’t do anything to change it. He may not be able to thrive in fascist Austria, but he could at least survive until the current political storm had passed. And it would indeed pass, he prayed. It always did. Politicians come and go with startling frequency but people, community, that endured in spite of all the despicable efforts of bigots. One day, Simon knew with fervent certainty, the names of Engelbert Dollfuss and Adolf Hitler would be a mere footnote in history, the harbingers of a dark time for the Fatherland, but a time that had since passed and one Austria emerged from it better than before.
It would happen. He knew it.
But what if it doesn’t? What if the fascists are here to stay?
Simon quelled the thought as he finished his coffee. He rose from his desk, gathered the various documents and financial ledgers he had been auditing the past few weeks, and left his office with a briefcase in tow. Outside the small room, he walked through the hallway to the kitchen. Judith was sipping her own coffee, reading a novel, while Felix and Hannah both worked on their breakfasts. Simon shook his head in amazement. They ate so much yet it seemed to go nowhere but fuel their growth.
Felix was eighteen, broad shouldered but with a kind soul. He was helping his younger sister Hannah, who would turn fifteen soon and nearing womanhood with each passing day, with her arithmetic homework. Simon could have helped her, and typically did, but he had to rush to work today. He dared not show up late as the punishments for doing so had become increasingly harsh, either with heavily docked pay or even termination of employment.
Looking at the two children who still lived with him and Judith, it amazed him how fast time passed. It only seemed the day before yesterday that Simon had been sitting at this very table, watching the twins Richard and Abraham compete to see who could eat the fastest, Felix who had been but a toddler and Hannah had not even been conceived yet. Now… now things had changed drastically. Abraham was dead, buried somewhere in the Italian Alps, Richard lived his own life, having moved out years ago and married a sweet gentile girl named Mia Kleinbauer. Simon did not have grandchildren, yet, but he suspected he would soon as their wedding had only been a year ago and they were still in sort of honeymoon phase where they could not keep their hands off one another.
Felix was soon to go to university, wishing to go to the Vienna University of Economics and Business. He wanted to own his own supply store chain one day, which Simon found commendable. Hannah on the other hand, his quiet and bookish little girl, was quickly becoming a woman. He dreaded the day a boy came calling after her. Would he shake the boy’s hand or pummel him into the ground? Simon shrugged. It would not happen today, nor tomorrow. The day after, perhaps, but he will worry about it then.
Now he needed to get to work. “I’m off. See you all tonight.”
The chorus of goodbyes was only interrupted by a reminder from Judith.
“Richard and Mia will be stopping by tonight for dinner. Around seven. Don’t be late.”
“I won’t!” he smiled, kissing her affectionately on the cheek before donning his homburg and walking out of the house.
The morning was cool, but it promised to be a warm day. Viennese summers were not as bad as others he had read about, the ones in Texas made him shudder at the thought, but they were not the most enjoyable, especially on cloudless days of which today so far proved to be. Walking along the street he had lived on for decades, he whistled tunelessly, nodding at several other well-dressed men, and even a few women, who were on their way to work.
He had made it only a few houses down when a familiar voice spoke up.
“Don’t bother even saying hello anymore, eh, Simon? Some would consider that rude.” Half the words were slurred by alcohol. Simon looked at Fritz Hanke, the man who had been his best friend for years, and winced at the state of him. Sitting on a chair beside his front door, Fritz was unshaven with brown hair unkempt and clothing that looked as if it hadn’t gotten washed in a few days. He looked far worse for wear than Simon was accustomed to seeing, though admittedly he hadn't seen much of his friend lately over the past nine months, ever since Fritz had been let go from Creditanstalt in the second round of layoffs.
“Hey, Fritz, didn’t see you there” Simon tried for lightheartedness. Fritz’s scowl told him that he failed.
“Didn’t see me? How could you not?” Fritz’s bloodshot eyes focused on him, all that anger, all that despair had been looking for a worthy target to vent frustration on and it had found Simon instead. “You don’t see me because you still have a job, because you can still provide for your family, because I’m nothing but a God-fearing Austrian man down on his luck and therefore might as well be invisible. A piece of trash cast to the curb, is that right?"
“Fritz, buddy, you know that’s not what I meant.”
Fritz glared at him for a moment before softening. “I know, I know, it’s just been hard is all.Three kids to feed and a wife who is working half the day away for scraps.” Fritz sighed. “I should be more grateful. Those scraps Greta is getting is what is allowing us to live. Enough to feed us and not much more than that.”
Simon nodded in sympathy. Fritz wasn’t the only person to lose their job at the bank. Following Creditanstalt's announcement that its finances were unsound, nearly a third of the staff had been laid off or their hours reduced. Once the Fatherland Front-Sozinat coalition came to power, as part of the bailout package that had lingered in parliament for nearly a year under Chancellor Seitz, every salary and hourly position had seen wages frozen or reduced by five percent as a cost-saving measure. The entire board had been terminated and their shares liquidated to pay off the bank’s enormous debt. The bank's president and majority-stake owner, Louis Nathaniel de Rothschild, had to sell his shares split between Österreichische Nationalbank and the government, with the latter taking partial ownership of Creditanstalt to help alleviate some of its fiscal pressures. Such government oversight, however, led to some severe cuts to help balance the books.
One such cut was job security. He opened his mouth to excuse himself when another man approached. He was young, good-looking, and had a confident swagger that would have endeared him to the ladies. What dismayed Simon was none of that, but the uniform he wore. Blue-gray with a wolf’s head pin on his lapel. An armband of black, white and red bore the Krückenkreuz in all its stark bigotry.
The Sturmwache man waved at them. “Good morning!” he said. In one hand he carried a stack of fliers. Simon could guess what they had written on them. The Sozinat handed both of them a flier. Simon glanced at it. It was, as he figured, a propaganda piece. It featured five men, Aryans with blond or light brown hair and blue eyes. One was dressed in factory dungarees and holding a wrench. Another was dressed in farmer coveralls, holding a pitchfork. There was a suited businessman, briefcase and all, while the fourth figure wore the medical white garb of a doctor. The fifth man, the centerpiece, was a soldier. All were reaching up towards a Krückenkreuz with the words Strength through Unity plastered above it.
A bit on the nose, perhaps, but Simon had to admit it would have been effective if he were the target audience. Not being so, he crumpled up the flier before the Sozinat’s eyes and tossed it on the ground contemptuously, taking satisfaction at the man’s momentary surprise. Few had likely resisted the fascist rhetoric so openly in the man’s presence since Dollfuss had become chancellor.
The Sturmman looked at him with hooded eyes. “I should have known a damn kike like you would live here amongst your betters, disturbing their peace like a snake in the grass.”
Simon slowly positioned himself for a confrontation. “The only person here disturbing the peace is you.”
“Oh, yeah? Well then, how bout we settle that.”
“Yes, let’s.” Simon’s refusal to back down, directly contradicting the Sozinat view that Jews were sniveling cowards. Simon may not have fought for long on the frontlines down in Romania, but he was not one to back down from a fight. Bullies like the Sozinats preferred to antagonize helpless victims rather than someone who could go toe-to-toe with them.
The little fascist must have sensed it and took a step back. He would have been too young to fight in the war and though he might have acquired some experience in street brawls and attacking the rallies of rival political parties, it paled to what one experienced in the field while artillery thundered and machineguns hammered away.
Looking to his left and right, not seeing any more of his Austrofascist comrades on the street, the Sozinat snarled and turned around. “You’ll get what you deserve one day, Jew. The Party never forgets a slight!”
Simon held his tongue, not wishing to inflame the situation just as it was being resolved. He watched the SW man walk around the corner of the block before breathing easy.
“Picking a fight with those men isn’t wise, Simon.”
“Maybe not,” Simon snapped in annoyance, ”But at least I stood up for myself. Thanks for the help,” he said, words dripping with venomous sarcasm. Immediately after having said them he regretted it. His friend’s face soured. Simon opened his mouth to apologize but Fritz spoke first.
“I think you should leave, Simon. Go on to your job, the same damn place that discarded me like spoiled food. Leave.”
“Fritz, I’m sorry.” Simon reached into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. He pulled out a fresh 20 krone banknote. He hated to part with it but he wanted to make amends. “Here, take your family out to dinner tonight”
“I don’t want you goddamn charity.” Fritz said, slapping Simon’s hand away. Fritz’s face turned reddish-purple with anger and when he spoke, fumes of cheap wine filled Simon’s nostrils. “Get. Out. Of. Here. I don’t need any of your stinking charity. You’re not better than me!”
Simon stuck the banknote back in wallet, turned about face as if he were still in the army and walked away. As he neared the end of the street, he kept an eye out for the Sozinat man but he was long gone, likely off to terrorize another innocent less likely to confront him. As he turned the corner, he looked back at his friend. Fritz Hanke, once a genial, polite man who cared little if someone was Jew or gentile, had picked up the flier Simon had crumpled and let fall to the ground. To Simon’s quiet dismay, his friend was looking at it intently, as if the propaganda there could solve all his woes.
Simon sighed. Another good man lost to the madness of extremism.
London, England
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
June 1932
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
June 1932
Garth Culpepper walked into the nondescript building with the calm assurance of someone who frequented it daily, something he only did when in-country. Taking off his homburg and light summer coat, he hung them on several of the hooks against the wall. The secretary, a hard-faced woman with gray streaked hair who might have smiled once before the Great War and never since, glared at him as if he was an affront to humanity. Culpepper didn’t take it personally, Edna was like that with everyone but Quex.
Nodding as friendly as he could, aware that beneath the desk stacked with papers and a typewriter was an American Tommy gun. With events across the world as chaotic as they were, Culpepper couldn’t even question why security was ramping up across Britain’s SIS.
Entering the preordained conference room that sported a long table and a lectern facing it, Culpepper found three other men and two women in there mingling, smoking cigarettes or sipping tea.
“Ah, Garth!” one of them called, an older gentleman whose mustache was more salt than pepper. Skin tanned several shades darker than common in typical British weather, the older man made his way to Culpepper.
“Steven,” Culpepper said warmly, shaking the man’s proffered hand. “How are you? When did you get back?”
“I’m fine, fine as can be anyhow.” Steven Crispi shrugged. “Got back just this morning. You?”
“Yesterday.”
The two men nodded at one another. Culpepper had been in Germany for weeks, while he knew Crispi had been in Italy. Observing the blackshirts and Italian society under fascism was not for the faint of heart, but it had to have paled compared to what Culpepper witnessed in Germany. With six weeks away until the new Reichstag elections, Culpepper had seen his fair share of political rallies.
DNVP, DVP, SDP and Center had much of the public support, or so it seemed at least from an initial glance, but the radicals worried him. The KDP were the most immediate threat, having millions of supporters amongst Germany’s working-class laborers for years but since the Great Depression had increasingly made inroads with the middle-class and, as Culpepper detailed in his report, with some elements in the Reichswehr.
Yet that was not his only worry about German politics.
The fascists in the FDAS, the DSNVP and the young but up-and-coming NDU were less in number than the other mainline parties but were, if anything, more militant than with the possible exception of the communists. The time he spent in Munich and Nuremberg had seen him attend several rallies for intelligence gathering. The German Social Nationalists and National Democrats, worried him the most for despite being separate political entities yet their cooperativeness was unparalleled in German politics. Rudolf Hess, chairman of the National Democratic Union, had even gone so far as to credit the Austrian Vice-Chancellor Hitler as an ‘inspiration’ for their Bavarian-centered movement.
What worried Culpepper the most was Hess’ insistence that Bavaria had more in common with Austria than the rest of Germany and that their brotherhood stretched across Prussian-made borders. Was that merely to score points with a rising governmental figure in a nearby country or was it a flirtation with secession? Culpepper didn’t know, and he sincerely doubted if President Hindenburg or Chancellor von Papen knew either though he had no doubt the government had spies in all camps, yet would they prove a boon or a liability?
Before he could share his worries, Quex Sinclair walked into the room. Conversation stopped and the men and women turned their attention to their boss. As an admiral and spymaster, Quex held a formidable presence despite his elderly stature.
“Sit, sit,” he said and the SIS operatives complied.
Two assistants brought in large posters full of information, mostly bar and pie graphs that displayed everything from population, to economics to even ethnic demographics. Another walked around the room, handing out newspapers to each operative. Culpepper saw that the date printed in the corner of The Telegraph was for tomorrow. Culpepper noiselessly whistled. The man's reach was far. Interest piqued, his eyes wandered down to the frontpage.
Communist Coup in Chile!
Culpepper quickly flipped to the next page where the story went into more detail. The Communist Party of Chile, aided by trade unions and elements of the military, specifically naval elements, had overthrown the government of President Montero. It seemed the Sailors’ Mutiny had been a precursor rather than a singular event. Culpepper briefly wondered how Señor Schmidt fared in the coup’s early hours. As a government official, he undoubtedly had a target on his back. The paper said it had been relatively bloodless, but relatively bloodless was a far cry from completely bloodless.
He grunted as he finished reading.
Quex stood at the lectern at the end of the table, waiting for them to finish. When the last operative set the paper down Quex shrugged. “Disappointing but not altogether unexpected. What is going to make matters worse for us, however, is the Soviet Union has already recognized the so-called Socialist Republic of Chile. That’ll be in the papers tomorrow or the day after next. It seems Sverdlov is wasting no time in informing the world that the USSR is now a powerbroker rather than an observer, likely so as to firm up support at home following their own coup. Even with the purge that's already taking place across Russia against the Trotskyists and whomever are being labeled ‘counter-revolutionary,’ I have a feeling the Soviets will be taking more aggressive steps in the realm of foreign affairs henceforth. I wouldn’t be surprised if weapon shipments and money start flooding into Chile over the next few months to stabilize the communist government there.”
Quex sighed, suddenly looking his age. Britain’s spymaster took a moment to quietly reflect before looking back at them.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, they don’t pay us to have the easy job, now do they? We’re underfunded and overworked, but by God we shall keep working for King and Country!”
That elicited an enthusiastic cheer and as Quex went about breaking down future operations for them. Culpepper noted he would be spending a lot of time in Southeastern Europe for the next few years. Italian Fascism and Austrofascism was influencing several similar movements in the countries there. It seemed Europe’s Powder Keg was being replenished with radicalism, ready to be ignited by conflict fueled by the ambition of dictators. Culpepper wondered where and when the next war would be for he had no doubt that there would indeed be another war.
He sighed. Such was life, such was duty, when one served his country.
Nodding as friendly as he could, aware that beneath the desk stacked with papers and a typewriter was an American Tommy gun. With events across the world as chaotic as they were, Culpepper couldn’t even question why security was ramping up across Britain’s SIS.
Entering the preordained conference room that sported a long table and a lectern facing it, Culpepper found three other men and two women in there mingling, smoking cigarettes or sipping tea.
“Ah, Garth!” one of them called, an older gentleman whose mustache was more salt than pepper. Skin tanned several shades darker than common in typical British weather, the older man made his way to Culpepper.
“Steven,” Culpepper said warmly, shaking the man’s proffered hand. “How are you? When did you get back?”
“I’m fine, fine as can be anyhow.” Steven Crispi shrugged. “Got back just this morning. You?”
“Yesterday.”
The two men nodded at one another. Culpepper had been in Germany for weeks, while he knew Crispi had been in Italy. Observing the blackshirts and Italian society under fascism was not for the faint of heart, but it had to have paled compared to what Culpepper witnessed in Germany. With six weeks away until the new Reichstag elections, Culpepper had seen his fair share of political rallies.
DNVP, DVP, SDP and Center had much of the public support, or so it seemed at least from an initial glance, but the radicals worried him. The KDP were the most immediate threat, having millions of supporters amongst Germany’s working-class laborers for years but since the Great Depression had increasingly made inroads with the middle-class and, as Culpepper detailed in his report, with some elements in the Reichswehr.
Yet that was not his only worry about German politics.
The fascists in the FDAS, the DSNVP and the young but up-and-coming NDU were less in number than the other mainline parties but were, if anything, more militant than with the possible exception of the communists. The time he spent in Munich and Nuremberg had seen him attend several rallies for intelligence gathering. The German Social Nationalists and National Democrats, worried him the most for despite being separate political entities yet their cooperativeness was unparalleled in German politics. Rudolf Hess, chairman of the National Democratic Union, had even gone so far as to credit the Austrian Vice-Chancellor Hitler as an ‘inspiration’ for their Bavarian-centered movement.
What worried Culpepper the most was Hess’ insistence that Bavaria had more in common with Austria than the rest of Germany and that their brotherhood stretched across Prussian-made borders. Was that merely to score points with a rising governmental figure in a nearby country or was it a flirtation with secession? Culpepper didn’t know, and he sincerely doubted if President Hindenburg or Chancellor von Papen knew either though he had no doubt the government had spies in all camps, yet would they prove a boon or a liability?
Before he could share his worries, Quex Sinclair walked into the room. Conversation stopped and the men and women turned their attention to their boss. As an admiral and spymaster, Quex held a formidable presence despite his elderly stature.
“Sit, sit,” he said and the SIS operatives complied.
Two assistants brought in large posters full of information, mostly bar and pie graphs that displayed everything from population, to economics to even ethnic demographics. Another walked around the room, handing out newspapers to each operative. Culpepper saw that the date printed in the corner of The Telegraph was for tomorrow. Culpepper noiselessly whistled. The man's reach was far. Interest piqued, his eyes wandered down to the frontpage.
Communist Coup in Chile!
Culpepper quickly flipped to the next page where the story went into more detail. The Communist Party of Chile, aided by trade unions and elements of the military, specifically naval elements, had overthrown the government of President Montero. It seemed the Sailors’ Mutiny had been a precursor rather than a singular event. Culpepper briefly wondered how Señor Schmidt fared in the coup’s early hours. As a government official, he undoubtedly had a target on his back. The paper said it had been relatively bloodless, but relatively bloodless was a far cry from completely bloodless.
He grunted as he finished reading.
Quex stood at the lectern at the end of the table, waiting for them to finish. When the last operative set the paper down Quex shrugged. “Disappointing but not altogether unexpected. What is going to make matters worse for us, however, is the Soviet Union has already recognized the so-called Socialist Republic of Chile. That’ll be in the papers tomorrow or the day after next. It seems Sverdlov is wasting no time in informing the world that the USSR is now a powerbroker rather than an observer, likely so as to firm up support at home following their own coup. Even with the purge that's already taking place across Russia against the Trotskyists and whomever are being labeled ‘counter-revolutionary,’ I have a feeling the Soviets will be taking more aggressive steps in the realm of foreign affairs henceforth. I wouldn’t be surprised if weapon shipments and money start flooding into Chile over the next few months to stabilize the communist government there.”
Quex sighed, suddenly looking his age. Britain’s spymaster took a moment to quietly reflect before looking back at them.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen, they don’t pay us to have the easy job, now do they? We’re underfunded and overworked, but by God we shall keep working for King and Country!”
That elicited an enthusiastic cheer and as Quex went about breaking down future operations for them. Culpepper noted he would be spending a lot of time in Southeastern Europe for the next few years. Italian Fascism and Austrofascism was influencing several similar movements in the countries there. It seemed Europe’s Powder Keg was being replenished with radicalism, ready to be ignited by conflict fueled by the ambition of dictators. Culpepper wondered where and when the next war would be for he had no doubt that there would indeed be another war.
He sighed. Such was life, such was duty, when one served his country.