THE IRON EAGLE
DAYS OF STRIFE
DER ANGRIFF
When he was told the news, he did not wish to believe it, after all he was only on the verge of his 62nd Birthday back then, so close to their great goal. Yes, they were fractious, more than he would ever admit, so many within the party that were great threats. The Strasser Brothers and men such as Röhm and Stennes were nothing close to the threat that men like Bormann, Himmler and Heydrich had become. Many times he had urged action from the Führer, just as many times he had felt like tearing the scalpel of his head in frustration, but when he acted he was always decisive, and within a single conversation he could captivate even the harshest heart. How could such a man have died? Morell, no doubt, played his part by being a Jewish agent, a charlatan as Goebbels himself grew to believe as time passed, they should have been just as implaccable with the man before he did such irreversible damage. Now he knew that the man most responsible for Germany's decline was Theodor Morell, the Jewish Doctor, since then he had to make sure his own doctors had been put through such a background test for their heritage that even the SS found excessive at times. He had been in that dark cinema, where a movie was stuck on a loop showcasing a German tale animated in America, of a perfect young girl being poisoned by a jealous witch with all the signals of the Jew, in the very same way their Führer was poisoned, if only he saw the warnings of his own cartoon, no doubt they would have been Masters of the World.
Hess was another one to blame, or was he? The Pathetic fool's only mistake was never asking for a retirement of his duty when his mind began to be debilitated years ago. And yet he had been made the successor nonetheless thanks to that Weasel Bormann's machinations, and then he remembered how Himmler attempted to rid himself of him that day in Germania where the parade turned out to be a day-long battle for the heart of Europe. He did not win that day, had he said the right words, he now knew, the masses full of fevor, full of grief for the death of their beloved leader, would have arisen and chased out them all. The Army, full of false ideologues and geriatric fools, The Party, full of a vile rot that could rust even Titanium, which destroyed National Socialism's very foundations, The Security Service, as corrupt and elitist as the old Feudal Lords, The Burgeouise Elements, all of them so full of greed they would turn Germania into a place as degenerate as New York City for pure profit, all of them could have been destroyed that day. And yet he failed, the job was never finished and only some extraordinarily rotten apples would be removed, the rest left to rot the tree.
He had awaited, remained quiet over the growing corruption because he knew the time was not ripe, instead he was forced to cover their errors, their mistakes. For all his faults, Hess at least believed in Adolf Hitler, at least he believed in National Socialism, somewhere in that increasingly insane mind was still a man who stayed by the Führer's side since the days of fighting on the streets. Yes, those were the true days of National Socialism, where the movement defined itself with it's 25 Points, where the SA could be relied upon, at least mostly, to fight the good fight, when they had clear and obvious enemies at home. He had never much agreed with the legalistic ways, although they did get them into power, many times he had to do what needed to be done through decisive and public action such as in the Kristallnacht, when unleashing the Great Pogrom on the Jews despite Himmler's insistence on legalism and subterfuge. No, silence would never allow National Socialism to grow and prosper, the movement needed action, which is why he had created The Attack.
The Attack, a great editorial to go around Amman and the Strasser Brothers, when he was still fighting over this city when it was still called Berlin. When he arrived as Gauleiter, the movement was mediocre, squabbling and meek compared to the challenges the Urban masses posed, the rural members of the party, those provincial leaders from small towns, never understood what him and the Führer understood. Hitler lived in Vienna, he lived in Rheydt and then Berlin, both saw the growing urbanization without control, the poverty, the miscigenation, the foreign influences, the Jewish decadence reigned in these places, no wonder Goebbels believed himself worthy, as the Führer himself entrusted him with the hardest task of the Party. He was still the Gauleiter of Germania, although by the rules made by Wegener he would theoretically have to retire in a few years, he would be sure this rule would not last to the end of that month, and the Heart of the Reich was his responsibility. As well as the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, and the Ministry of Education for a time, both of them were the most crucial and important aspects of the Reich, above War or Bureaucracy, the belief of the masses is what makes or breaks a Nation, the Will of the Nation was now to be his Will.
Now here he was, just a couple of months from his 62nd Birthday, taking the position as the Führer of the Greater Germanic Reich, and he felt like he did when he first set his foot in Berlin in 1926. The enemy was less obvious, they used the same banners, raised the same salute, spoke the same words, and yet their hearts were impure. The opposition was still as fierce as ever but, like before, they made the crucial mistake of underestimating him. Goebbels knew he did no longer have the Führer to rely on to save him, no man could ever match the Messianism of Adolf Hitler, but he would not need that, he would not need the Führer to broker deals, to calm down factions, to make trips and speeches, to ignore his letters repeatedly urging action, because he learned the lesson. He would prepare the terrain, he would bide time, he would set the pieces as his Mentor did, and then he would strike all at once when they did not expect him. They thought that he would be another Hess, another loud spokesman to keep the masses appeased and distracted while they went back to their conspiracies, let them believe it.
It was the 2nd of August of 1959 when the news came, Rudolf Hess, the almighty Führer of the Greater Germanic Reich, and almost the Destroyer of Civilization, was dead. Around the world, the news brought nothing but relief for millions who received the news across the world, Germany would no longer threaten to destroy the planet over the conflict in the Urals, but to others, there was fear. Every change in power on a nation ruling over a Continent would send inevitable shockwaves across the world to varying degrees, there were many who saw the rise of Rudolf Hess as some measure of stability compared to Hitler, and he came close to killing more than Hitler ever dreamed of, what could be said of a man who looked like a radical to match Hitler? Joseph Goebbels was perhaps the most internationally recognized figure of the Reich, even more than Hess himself in some ways. He was the one who was always on the Television, on the Radio, announcing each policy, each brutal campaign, each event, his voice spoke and aroused the masses unlike any other figure. How could anyone look at Goebbels and think he was anything less than an unstable radical who should be kept as far away from power as possible?
The Leadership of the Party was the Small Senate of 64 members, composed of the Gauleiters and Reichsleiters, the main body of the Party and State when it came to major decisions which the rubber-stamp Reichstag was unfit to decide such as the succession of the leader of the NSDAP, who was by definition the leader of Germany. When Hess died, the scenery was already prepared for the power transition to ensure it would be smoother than the rise of Hess, giving no margin for a vacuum, for questions or protests, at least that is what they hoped. In truth someone had prepared for protests, Goebbels, as Gauleiter of Germania, had already made his agreements with the Party Chancellor Karl Kaufmann, but he would be a fool to trust only in him to take the votes he needed, the majority of the Party had to stand with him and he knew Speer and his supporters had deeper pockets. But no politician would dare vote against the one man who could appease the masses at the gates, protesting and calling for a strong leader, one who would reverse the decline that Hess put the Reich through.
And so he had won, but the situation he inherited was one of calamity, although not in a threatening scale per se. The decisive action of Rudolf Hess, who so selflessly decided to suffer such severe case of lead poisoning in his head, allowed for the rise of the one leader the bosses of the Party knew could satisfy the growing crowds in the streets. Goebbels did just that, on the 18th of September of 1959 he ended the most imminent threat to his popularity, the costly Ural War. Wegener's adventure cost a treasure's worth of Reichsmarks, the lives of around half a million Germans, and the end result was a stalemate with the Russians becoming only more emboldened with new weapons and more united than ever before. The Slavic enemy had fallen further into the grasp of the Jews in Washington and New York. Not only that, it was clear that the enemies of the Reich were on the offensive, the Portuguese were alienated by Schörner's foolish suggestions and now even more of Africa had fallen under the grip of the West. The Jewish Zionist enclave in Israel showed a feat of martial prowess only rivaled by the Reich's own conquests in the past while the Wehrmacht was humiliated by it's failure. The Italians had acquired Nuclear Weapons thanks to Hess and Heydrich's arrogance, with a new leadership which acted more and more like a rival rather than a partner. Goebbels always knew that allying the Italians was a mistake, although he trusted Hitler, they should have still dealt with Mussolini when they could, the Germans in Trentino were still beyond the borders of the Vaterland. Ironically, the Germans ended up with more people after the Ural War than before it, for almost a million Volga Germans would be deported to the west by the Russians, being given the warm embrace of the Reich, settled across the fertile and empty lands of the West around the Don River and the Volga itself. Naturally they would also have to be under close watch by the Gestapo to ensure ideological compliance after ages under the rule of the Tsars.
But before the Ural War had even ended, Goebbels had many matters to attend in consolidating his power, namely to cement the triumph of the State faction over the Control Faction. Bormann and Wegener's disciples were still a powerful force within the party, although most of them voted for either him or Speer, others were still dissidents, one even making a symbolic vote for Adolf Hitler. He formed his cabinet, for now keeping several of Hess ministers such as Bouhler as head of the Chancellery, Haffner in Justice, Wagner in Transport and Seyss-Inquart in the Interior. In other cases he had to appease Speer such as how he merged his ministries into a powerful single office responsible for the Economy, Production and Armaments manufacturing, in practice that did little but consolidate symbolically that Albert Speer was still a powerful figure in the Reich and in Goebbels' leadership. He needed to appease his backers and fellow members of the State Faction of the Party while slowly ensuring their downfall. While it would be in his previous style to order an immediate purge, this was no longer the streetfighter figure that fought on a daily basis to make sure Berlin would have the bloodiest politics in Europe, he had learned and adapted. First he would win over the people's hearts once again, and for that he needed a child.
Klara Hitler was celebrating her 12th anniversary on the 6th of October of 1959 under the watchful eye of Goebbels' cameras. The Führer invited the girl and her mother to Capital for the occasion at his Residence in Schwanenwerder, which was decorated in a festive mood. Days prior, a parade was made for the victors of the Ural War, although many editions had to be made and agitators had to be carefully placed to cheer up the crowd at first when they saw that many of the soldiers came back scarred and visibly shaken over a pointless conflict that Goebbels resignified as a "Defense of the Eastern Border against the Slavic Assault", at least that is what he claimed the war was after Hess' suicide. Now there was another reason to celebrate with the Führer receiving her side by side with his wife, Magda, an ambitious woman who at last was the First Lady she so wished to be. Eva, however, would always outrank Magda Goebbels in the hierarchy, no other woman could claim to be the widow of the Great Führer himself and the carrier of his only offspring. Klara was a smart girl for her age, with the blue eyes of her father and the hair of her mother, and the Führer made sure to have every moment he was with her recorded and photographed for propagandistic purposes. He did have a genuine concern for her wellbeing, after all she was the closest link he had of the man he worshipped. Despite his usual beliefs of the place of the German Aryan women, Goebbels vehmently vetoed the mere suggestion of enrolling Klara in the Island's SS school for women, he claimed that it would be the greatest embarrassment that the only child of Adolf Hitler was to be subservient and submissive to a husband who would naturally be the lesser partner to a woman who had the "purest of genes". As such Klara never had received the education of most girls at her age, rather she was always given the very best, taught of the greatness of her father and his name. Meanwhile, Goebbels had other intentions for the girl, as his son Helmut was still unmarried and "only" 6 years apart from the girl, what greater boon would there be of him claiming to be the sole inheritor to Hitler's legacy than to have his son marry his only daughter? But of course that plan would still have to wait.
The War ended and now the time came to rebuild the Reich from the disastrous legacy left over the last years, the first of them being the atrocious state that the Reich's economy revealed itself to be. Back in 1936, Hjalmar Schacht, perhaps one of the best economical advisors a government could have, was fired by Hitler for daring to suggest the militarization had to be slowed down or else it would cause the implosion of the German economy due to the large-scale ponzi schemes and irrational economical measures made by a leadership which distrusted financial economy as a Jewish invention, that agriculture was the natural calling of the Aryan man, that industry was meant to serve the state, and that darwinism had to be applied in economics resulting in the decimation of small business. Those beliefs were somewhat mitigated by the realities of the post-war world during Hess' rule, only to be supplemented by a system which was slavery in all but name, exploiting the labor of tens of millions of subjects from the conquered territories in the east. The Autarky was perhaps one of the greatest impediments to the German economical development due to the fact the German market purposefully cut itself from the outside world, refusing to engage in commerce out of fear of dependence and instead seeking to fulfill it's resource hunger, especially during Hitler's megalomaniac architectural projects, by exploiting an entire continent. The Linz Pakt nations, Syria, Turkey, Iran and the United Arab Republic were some of the rare exceptions which made up the "Foreign Commerce" of the Reich, at least if one did not include the large-scale black market schemes that the German government operated which they themselves shut down by invading Portugal.
Needlessly to say, the system was... inefficient to say the least, and downright self-harming at worst. The German Economy had grown a meager estimate between 1950 and 1960, it is really telling that China, a far less advanced economy under the Command system of Mao Zedong's Communist Party, had increased it's exports far more than the entirety of the Linz Pakt during the same period despite spending much of it in an undeclared war with the Western powers. Kaufmann and Speer were both in agreement that the German economy needed to start a gradual opening to the west. Kaufmann did so mostly out of self-benefit as the Gauleiter of Hamburg, which would obviously be one of the main trade ports to the outside world. Goebbels was very skeptical on the more "reformist" aspects of Speer and Kaufmann's ideas, after all they still represented a growing rot within the party. But he reluctantly agreed because of another idea, Germany had to prove it's inherent superiority to the world following the military disaster that the Ural War was, and since his Foreign Minister Ludin had already established a certain contact with the west, he could use that goodwill to open the ports of Europe and allow for an improvement in the life quality of the German Volk. Naturally he still imposed such ridiculous standards for imports that they could very well still be forbidden, speaking of forbidden the United Nations had still not lifted their embargo on Germany, but now perhaps there was an opportunity to grow a market for German exports in neutral countries such as in Latin America and Asia.
Another issue that plagued the economy was the economical Darwinianism which led to the growth of Industrial Conglomerates rich enough to buy a few small countries. IG Farbien, for instance, was a chemical conglomerate responsible for much of the synthetic and chemical production in Germany, from oil to pharmaceuticals to Deathly gasses prohibited by the Geneva Convention. The Krupp Conglomerate under Alfred Krupp was perhaps the greatest supplier of armaments in Europe, from tanks to even the ships in the Germaniawerft in Kiel, there was little which was not produced by such an enormous company that ruthlessly exploited Slave Labor in a scale only matched by it's peers. Siemens, Reichswerke, the Flick KG, the Dresdner Bank, and even the food company Dr. Oetker have grown immensely powerful as well, through many connections with the SS through the membership of many of it's members, Alfred Krupp being one for example. The Freundskreis der Wirtschaft, the Circle of Friends of the Economy, was a group of Industrials formed by Heinrich Himmler to coordinate the close partnership between these companies and the NSDAP, which also allowed said corporations to freely expand by essentially plundering the Continent and establishing themselves as a force of their own.
Albert Speer was the one who was adamant in strengthening the partnership with such companies, as these corporations were the only ones, in his opinion, which could fulfill the needs of the Reich's programs. Ironically the United States and Britain, the greatest symbols of capitalism, were in an opposite direction when it came to large corporations with Huey Long practically engaged in a crusade against the de facto monopolies held by American companies and the British launching large-scale nationalizations during the post-war consensus. But Goebbels argued in the opposite direction, seeing these companies as the incarnation of Judeo-Capitalism, the Burgeouise corruption in the Reich which grew unchecked during Hess' years and now Speer supported either out of manipulation or malice. He believed in the "Socialist" aspect of National Socialism, although he was far from a Marxist who despised Private Propriety, Goebbels wanted the strengthening of the State, as the true representative of the Volk, by crushing said corporate elements as they poisoned the Reich with it's greed. For the moment, he did nothing, but that too would soon change once the Attack began.
One thing Speer and Goebbels agreed, the German people needed to see wonders, they needed to once more believe the supremacy of their nation above all others, which is why the Space Program became a priority for the former Propaganda Minister. There is little which can demonstrate power more than a German reaching into space, the Peenemunde Research Facility was the first one to test that potential through the Rocket program led by Major-General Dr. Walter Dornberger and under the Technical Direction of Dr. Werner von Braun. The propellant first was researched for it's military potential for the fast delivery of heavy payload at high speed without risking bomber crews in the East. The first use happened in 1944 with the Fi 103, a flying bomb as it was called, which was a much smaller device compared to the A-4 Rocket which was also deployed, they were used in bombing campaigns during the German intervention in the Russian Civil War in support of the German-allied Russian Liberation Army.
The installation in Cologne was built in 1952 to provide a more advanced facility for the program, while also it's presence near the major cities of the Rhine would allow for a civilians to more easily be brought to watch the rocket tests, one year later a project still being made in Peenemunde would wield results as the first major test open to the public, at the insistence of Goebbels, several citizens from the region would be brought to watch the launch of the A12 Rocket, an advanced machine unlike any the world had seen until then. Launching itself into the Orbit of the earth, it sparked fears in the United States that this was a nuclear-armed rocket that could at best have it's debris crashing in the US mainland and at worse it was the start of a coordinated attack. It was neither of these, the Germans were still finishing the project of their satellite, this was a test for the 4-stage rocket to see if it would be able to deliver it's load, but the military never denied that it could be used to deliver several nuclear bombs at the target. There was supposed to be a pilot in the flight, the first man into space, but Hess prohibited it, out of fear that if thousands of German citizens were brought over and the rocket exploded, it would be a far too traumatic experience to the German Volk to see a man go up in flames alongside it. The rocket stayed in orbit for days before returning, crashing over the North Sea where the Kriegsmarine recovered the surviving parts.
The first satellite launched in a A12 would be on the winter of 1955, when the "Mars" satellite, although it's technical name was "Satellit-1", was launched into orbit, an event which was enormously propagandized across the world as the greatest feat mankind had achieved, sending a man-made "autonomous" structure into Orbit which was able to transmit data from outer space. In Washington, the main effect other than paranoia that the Germans were spying over the mainland, although a justified concern considering that was exactly what the satellite did, was that President Long promised an American Satellite until the end of the decade, which was launched in 1958. That same year, the Germans were supposed to send it's first manned mission into Space, however the outbreak of the Ural War diverted resources towards the armaments program in Cologne, which included long-range ballistic missiles which hit as far as Vladivostock, although they were more of a morale weapon than having actual impact due to it's lack of accuracy.
Finally the launch was put back on schedule after Goebbels took power in August, on the 24th of December, in the morning of the Christmas eve which was perfectly on the day where Goebbels knew people would be at their homes across much of the world. In one of von Braun's newest models, the A15 rocket, which was redesigned to ensure a safe return to it's crew, Ulrich Bischoff became the first human into Space. A great achievement, all things considered, especially that his capsule was able to survive re-entry, however an error in calculations ended up in disaster as he fell near Dover, in British territorial waters. The Kriegsmarine mobilized a rescue team but the Royal Navy beat them to it, seizing the German pilot in an embarrassing affair for Germania. But Bischoff was treated with great courtesy, after all even in London there was a crowd of people wanting to see the first man into space in the middle of Christmas. King Edward met with the Astronaut and he was returned to Germania, although unknowingly to the world, his return involved the return of five other MI6 agents captured during the War which were being held in a Concentration camp. Goebbels agreed with the exchange, knowing just how disastrous it would be if a German astronaut was captured in the middle of Christmas right after such achievement. Edward was able to look benevolent to a civilian hero, returned 6 British citizens back to their country alongside their information, and showed that you cannot escape from the Royal Navy in British Waters.
Bischoff was an Austrian born in the city of Innsbruck in 1923, serving a few years in the Luftwaffe between 1941 and 1943 in North Africa where he learned English and had a friendly relationship with his colleagues in the Wehrmacht. After the war he finished his studies in Mechanical engineering and joined the Space Programme in Peenemunde, from there he became a pilot for the program, eventually being chosen to pilot the mission into space in December, although he suspected he was chosen more because of his blonde hair than for being the most competent pilot. He was nervous before the flight, as the Cologne Center had made a couple of tests before where the capsule did not survive reentry, further tests were cancelled due to the Ural War and so he had to trust in Von Braun's third attempt to get him home alive. He made it, being given a Hero's welcome on the 25th after sleepless 48 hours where he had turned into a negotiation bargaining chip without even being fully aware of it. Bischoff would come back on a plane directly to Germania where he was greeted with an enormous parade, being given the Medal of the German Order, the highest honor a man could be given in the Reich. Goebbels made sure his every move was watched and later it would serve for the 1962 film "The Pioneer", which is considered a technical masterpiece telling the life story of Ulrich Bischoff and ending with his ceremony which included real, although edited, footage. Ulrich would be forbidden from flying other missions, however, being given a pension by the State and permission to continue working in the project as an instructor to pilots, but Goebbels could not risk his celebrity ace being blown up in another failed test.
And so began the year of 1960, with the German harbors finally opening up and Hanns Ludin breaking economical agreements with countries such as Venezuela and South Africa. The protests had ended, at least for now, as the end of the war ended also the worse of the privations, but the quality of life did not significantly improve. The German State budget over the last two decades has been in a growing spiral of spending which was only marginally reduced overall between 1952 and 1957, with another boost in military spending due to the War. Speer slashed the spending of several projects in the new budget in an attempt to reduce the enormous debt which became a problem as the GDP did not increase in anywhere the rate that the National debt did. He proposed to Goebbels the re-opening of stock markets, which was first shut down due to the Führer's belief that economic speculation was a Jewish tool. However, in February the Frankfurt Stock Market was opened up under certain limitations, such as the fact the only foreign investors allowed were from Linz Pakt member-states and German "Associates" such as Syria, Iran, South Africa and Turkey. Another measure to try to contain the debt growth, which threatened to spiral into inflation, was to reduce the price controls set up during the Pre-War years, allowing for a greater margin for the German small companies to fluctate their prices.
There was a sense of normalcy returning, a peace before the storm, apparently business were going back to usual after the war years and Speer's little reforms were already making an effect by allowing the German exports to increase in around 20% compared to the same trimester the previous year, although that was a year of war. New agreements were made with the Syrian government in March, as the Germans doubled down on supporting the Syrian military and the SD gave Saadeh's government a crucial support in cracking down on Iraqi separatists west of Baghdad, although the Germans refused to support a Syrian Nuclear program out of fear that it would allow Damascus too much autonomy. The Syrians attempted to join the Pakt once again, but the Reich claimed they still lacked the "proper standards of European excellence" in their economy and military, in no uncertain terms it referred to the embarrassing defeat of Saadeh's government and his continuous failures in destroying Israel despite the support from Germania. Ludin later went to Iran, where the Shah received the German delegation pompously, although the Minister admonished him for failing to properly support the Syrians against the Zionist forces in the previous year, the Iranians still received their weapons deal, there was no lack in equipment on German stockpiles after the Ural War.
The Elephant in the room was Italy, Giorgio Almirante and Joseph Goebbels both met in Bern in April in an attempt to come to a better understanding and reinforce their cooperation. But Goebbels found the Italian Duce an irritatingly arrogant man, who believed himself an equal to Germania because his country now had a dozen nuclear warheads of their own. Goebbels, provoked, ended up claiming that one German bomb could raze Rome while all of the Italian bombs couldn't destroy a German innkeep. He referred to the innacuracy and the low yield of the Italian bombs, which still had to be delivered by bombers, while the Germans could deliver Thermonuclear bombs through rockets and U-boats which would wipe out most of the Italian cities within hours. It was a well-known fact that the Germans had U-Boat bases near Beirut, in Toulon and the Balearic Islands. Almirante felt that the meeting was more of a "threatened bully still attempting to scare his victim" than a proper encounter between two allies. Yet, formally they still shook hands for the pictures and publicly reinforced their shared commitments towards European security. Furthermore, Goebbels did give Almirante something he wanted, the Germans would no longer seek a lunatic's adventure in supporting the British, which was one of the main points causing friction between the allies ever since the Suez War where Hess had even proposed intervening against Italy to safeguard British interests.
The economy and diplomacy were not the only affairs that needed to be put in order in the Reich, the military had shown a dire need for modernization following the conflict, namely to counter the infantry tactics used by the Russians against the Panzer Divisions, the motorization of German forces to standardize the Panzergrenadier divisions was necessary in order to allow the infantry to properly follow the speed of the Panzer Corps and provide support against infantry anti-tank armaments. Horses have been phased out, and yet the German divisions still had a haphazard mix of Opel model trucks and proper APCs. It would be a costly process to modernize the Heer and it would be necessary to scale back on it's bloated numbers for a more effective force. The problem was both in the high and lower levels, reducing the size of the Wehrmacht would cause an increase in the already alarming levels of unemployment among the German Youth, while the Military High Command would also protest on the reduction in the number of officers which would include the retirement of several veterans, many of which had still fought in the Ural War. Wenck and Heusinger were both in agreement that a reduction in the force would improve the logistics and allow for a more competent core of German troops, while also keeping a substantial reserve to be called upon in wartime. What worried both the Heer and especially the Waffen-SS was that a reduction in the number of troops could cause problems in the East, as several formerly extinguished partisan cells were active again due to the support of the Russian State and carried out acts of sabotage during the war. While they were far from fully threatening the German control over it's eastern territories, a substantial garrison was still needed to prevent an atmosphere of insecurity from scaring away the potential settlers.
Goebbels, however, had plans for the soldiers who would be demobilized and dismissed from the military, claiming that the SS alone could no longer keep control of the Reich's security scheme, as demonstrated by the Rostock bombing and several other attacks, including the failure in protecting their own Reichsführer, the Führer charged Günther Schwägermann, his personal SS aide, with the creation of a new force. The Volkssturm, or the People's Storm, was created on the 9th of November during the annual Nüremberg Rally of the NSDAP. Goebbels claimed that the protection of the late Führer's legacy is a task which belonged to all National Socialists, to all the German Volk, he did not yet go for a war, but that day another domino fell. Following the demobilization of the army, many of the soldiers who returned home had blamed the leadership of the Reich for their misfortunes, how they lacked supplies and yet were still thrown into the war, how many were forced to march over irradiated lands following Schörner's nuclear assaults in Operation Sutur, how they returned home and saw that even at home the people did not see them as heroes like the World War generation soldiers. Furthermore, in a younger note, the Hitler Youth graduates saw a harsh reality that the Ural War had revealed, rising prices, taxes and inflation curbing purchasing power, small stores being forced to close down as large department stores and subsidiaries of the Great corporations moved into a neighborhood, the constant rhetoric of triumph while they were defeated, the leadership of the Reich killing eachother in their corrupt games and even their Führer died when on the brink of destroying his foreign enemies. That is where Der Angriff came.
Goebbels returned to edit his old editorial, and once the news came that the Führer himself was back at the redaction, the copies of Der Angriff were selling more than the Volkische Beobachter itself. But Newspapers were far from the main means Goebbels used to reach the German people, even back in August one of his first measures was to create a "People's Screens" initiative, similar to the previous cheap sale/distribution of radios made in the 1930s to ensure that every house was within the reach of the Propaganda Ministry. Newspapers, Radio, and now Television were massified and this was a initiative where the Government did not spare expenses. Some joked that it was cheaper to buy a Television set and watch a cooking show than it was to buy it's ingredients. Although food prices still were accessible within the Reich at that point thanks to the cheap labor from the production in the eastern farms in places such as Ukraine, and cheap can be said to be free labor too more often than not. Goebbels was making such seemingly inconspicuous moves while biding his time, setting up all the pieces necessary. He had the means to raise the Volk, and through it he began a weekly program at Friday nights called "Fireside Chats", all perfectly made where Goebbels himself would be in his office near a fireplace, seated on a chair and receiving calls or being interviewed by some figures, all of it carefully planned out from the calls he received to the questions he answered.
He spoke about the concerns of the people, making himself seem close to them, understanding their problems and announcing paternalistic policies to relieve them, he exorted charity and the emphasis on the social, condemning individualism as a Jewish invention to weaken the unity of the people and nation. That program also showcased him having conversations with celebrities, such as Ulrich Bischoff, who told the German nation how it was like to see Europe and the Earth from space. He talked with Ministers such as Ludin about his foreign travels, which told about exotic locations in the Middle East and the mongrel degeneracy in America, although the minister never set foot in American territory. He talked with Neumann about the great work of the Public Enlightenment Ministry, he interviewed renowned directors from Rifenstahl to Fritz Hippler, even the Italian Sergio Leone went to the program, talking about the Italian cinema's cooperation with the German one. Leone did go offscript one, speaking how his great movie, "Anníbal", which tells the tale of the Carthaginian enemy of Rome being shown as a "noble savage" and a "worthy enemy", was not his first idea and that he had been vetoed from making a movie about Ben-Ur, Goebbels still managed to salvage the conversation by giving Leone a cue to say he intended to portray the Jewish slave as a savage zealot, rather than a heroic figure, to which the director nervously acquiesced.
He announced the creation of the Volksstrum and used the program to promote recruitment into it, an association which united from veterans of the Ural War to fresh members out of the Hitler Youth, men from the age of 18-25 were the target, as the military went through a reorganization and the SS was no longer seen as positively as it once did, the mass of frustrated young men joined this new militia which was initially given garrison duties at a good payment, even above the average for the equivalent rank in the SS or Wehrmacht. Goebbels himself dismissed Kempka from his office, retiring the bodyguard of the last two Führers who stood at the door while his leader died, and replaced the FBK with the Volkssturm in the charge of his personal guard. The militia quickly grew from it's initial 500 members into over 50 thousand within two months, and further expansion was being planned as the new militia was seen as the new Vanguard of the Reich and that quickly began to draw in the attention and fear of the old Vanguard of the Party.
Werner Best was not who was most expected to command the SS, but Heydrich's death had caused an explosion which shattered the almighty SSK-RSHA organization, the Party Leadership did not wish to have a man so powerful, one who was almost omnipresent in the Security apparatus, which is why there was a division, the Waffen-SS was now directly under the Wehrmacht's command, the SD was made an independent organization under Bolschswing, the SiPo was independent under Eichmann, and he was given the SS simply because he was already a fading star. He had long been sidelined by Heydrich in the past, serving more as an administrator in places such as France, Denmark, Poland, and wherever they needed him to be, where the resistance was particularly high at a certain time of the year he went in, reorganized the local command and then was sent away before forming a power base. He was the errand man, and a legal expert that could help bring some sense of legitimacy into the decisions of the Organization, as Himmler did many times in the past. But now he was faced with the greatest challenge the SS ever did, watching a new Führer who distrusted them when they were seen as corrupt and incompetent by the German society following the Ural War, it was no that the SS was seen as a threat like the SA once was, but an inconvenience who now was no longer seen favorably by the Führer who had a more radical vision with no place for an "Aristocracy".
It was obvious to Goebbels that the SS had to be the first one taken out of the way for him to launch his move, and he found his excuse in the Tag das Sieges of 1960, when the great parade happened. It was an apparent normal day of celebrations, although Goebbels made sure that this year would showcase a stronger Germany than ever before, first the Volkssturm led the parade, led by the First division, made up of veterans from the Ural War. The Volkssturm caused a powerful impression when they appeared as Goebbels made a grand speech praising them for their sacrificial heroism in the East, exalting them as the Vanguard of the People, a symbol of the very best of the Aryan Race, he showed them as a popular grassroots organization made up of the collective heroism of the German people, rather than the cold and distant feeling that the SS gave as they were more and more seen as a distant and disconnected force, especially as the face of the SS for years, Reinhard Heydrich, was known as the "Man with Iron Heart" who rarely, if ever, spoke in public, at most pronouncing a few sentences. The Volkssturm, on the other hand, were endorsed by the Führer himself, and they shocked the people with their uniforms, rather than the usual grey or black, they wore a dark crimson red, similar to blood, and they raised the symbol of a Red Swastika, not of the old red of the Soviet Union, but a deep red from the blood that comes out of a stab in the heart. They marched down with their new anthem, the Florian Geyer song, an old German folk song which was popularized by the Freikorps, based around Florian Geyer, a hero of the German Peasant's war who organized a company which supported the peasants in 1525. The Peasant's War was romanticized in the German history, showing the fight of the Volk against Feudal Lords and Corrupt Bishops, it had once again become popular in 1956 when the Catholic Church leadership was purged in Germany. "Nulla Crux, Nulla Corona", neither cross nor crown, were the words inscribed on the banner of the First battalion of the Volkssturm.
Then came the attack, a bombing attempt was made on the podium just as Goebbels was leaving the stage. The Führer was not harmed, with his Volkssturm bodyguards shielding him and capturing the assailant as he attempted to flee through the crowd. It was discovered to have been a communist, a middle aged man named Erich Honecker, he was arrested on the spot and a quick background check revealed the information about him. He had been the leader of the Communist Youth of the Saarland in 1931 and was arrested for conspiring High treason in 1935, he was released in 1945 and arrested again for planning a terrorist attack in 1950 against Gauleiter Paul Geisler. He had escaped from a SS-led concentration camp in 1959 and now had come close to assassination Goebbels himself. Despite the SS' goal as bodyguards responsible for Goebbels' security, they had failed in such a goal and now a dozen people had been killed by the bomb, including the Minister of the Interior Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Furious, Goebbels would hold his program two days later on the Friday 22nd, announcing that the SS failed in it's duty and by Decree of the Führer they would be culled.
The SS was purged on the 22nd, not with bloodshed yet, but merely in their power. The SS economical office was disbanded and the Concentration camps were placed under the control of the Volkssturm, as well as their garrison duties. The Waffen-SS would bear the brunt of the demobilization program planned for the Wehrmacht, being reduced to only 12 divisions from their current 30. They would be reduced to their original purpose, as a bodyguard unit for members of the Party, although Goebbels remarked that perhaps even that was a tall order for them. The announcement was made in a deliberately provocative way to the most powerful paramilitary organization in the world, and so Best decided to act, reaching out to the command of the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler" in Germania. If Heydrich was able to once hold Rudolf Hess as a prisoner and extract concessions from him, he figured that the only way to prevent the downfall of the SS was to do the same, and on the 24th of April of 1960, the SS launched their coup and the world held it's breath.
It was the middle of the night when the Leibstandarte made it's move, the first priority was to cut off the centers of communication, from television to radio and military transmissions. The Wehrmacht garrison had returned to their barracks following the Tag das Sieges, as such Best needed to ensure they would not be alerted as they were 9 years prior. As for the Volksstrum, he ordered their moves watched but did no further action, he saw them as nothing more than street thugs who would fold the moment Goebbels was under their control. But as soon as the SS Column reached the Reich Chancellery they were faced with fierce resistance from the Volksstrum unit guarding the building, as well as SS forces still personally loyal to Goebbels. His desperate gamble failed the moment he realized that Joseph Goebbels was not in the Chancellery, the Führer had known of the plans that night, being told so by a man Best had expected to stand by his side: Adolf Eichmann, head of the SiPo, who still held a rivalry with Best for not being made the Reichsführer-SS following the demise of Heydrich, and his own survival instincts were a greater aspect of it, he knew that was a doomed coup and did not wish to have the Police dragged down into the fallout to come.
After he fed the SS with false intel on the location of Goebbels, he left the city alongside Goebbels' inner circle, and soon enough the Television came to life as Goebbels denounced a coup attempt in the heart of the Reich by the treacherous elements within the Schutzstaffel, Aristocrats who refused to give up their privileges. He called upon the German Volk to stand by the Führer and bring down the leaders of this ring of traitors, he also called upon loyal men in the SS to condemn Werner Best and his clique of traitors. The Wehrmacht and the Volksstrum, despite the classical tension between military and paramilitary forces, have held a long hatred of the men in black. The SS who schemed against the Führer for many years, the SS who betrayed the trust of Hitler, Hess and now Goebbels, the self-interested, drunk, homossexual elitists who incarnated corruption and acted as a State within a State, led by self-interested men who sabotaged the war effort in the east. Needlessly to say, when the Wehrmacht and the Volksstrum, as well as the lower ranks of the SS itself, turned against Best, he knew he was doomed. He killed himself in the floor of the Chancellery, but his blood was only the first to be spilled during that night.
The first enemy of the Reich to Joseph Goebbels was the SS, mainly because they were the most dangerous to his domain. Over the Night, Der Angriff's press machines worked non-stop while the Volkssturm stormed the SS Headquarters in the Reich with the support of the Police and the Wehrmacht, even with the SA taking part of the move. The plan was very well coordinated and planned out by Schwägermann over the last months, the Gestapo knew ahead of time of the attack by Honecker and the bomb in the podium, which is why Goebbels had stopped talking and left shortly before the explosion, leaving the blast radius just in time, while the plans for the parade were changed so the bombing coincided with the Volkssturm parade in order to have them seize the terrorist, further eroding the image of the SS and exalting the (VS). He also changed the schemes in the seats to ensure Inquart would be caught by the blast, as his death would give Goebbels the Ministry of the Interior for him to appoint, as consequence that meant control over the Police, and he had just appointed a new Minister: Hans Sommer. Born in 1914, Sommer was a member of the Hitler Youth and the first minister to have joined the party after the 30th of January of 1933 (He joined on the 1st of February of that year). A zealot officer in the SS, he was suspended on disciplinary grounds for leading an unauthorized attack on French Synagogues in 1941, later disputes over his fanaticism overruling the orders of the SS caused him to be drawn closer towards Goebbels' circle. Sommer became one of the leaders of the Volkssturm from it's inception as one of it's original 500 members, now being made the powerful Minister of the Interior, a position heavily prized due to it's command over the German Police.
The Night from the 24th to the 25th was a bloody affair, the first grand purge of the Volkssturm but far from the last one.
Haffner, the Minister of Justice, was given full power to presecute the enemies extrajudicially through the People's court, however thousands of SS members never made it to the court in the first place, low officers and soldiers who remained loyal to the organization were given no mercy by the German people and the VS, even after surrender they would be dragged into the streets where the Volkssturm leaders denounced their crimes and shot them in public, in other cases they were given to the crowds, accused of sometimes real and sometimes false charges ranging from murder to pedophilia, the fanatic speeches of the VS leaders, most being chosen due to personal charisma at times, would lead to the mob making their own justice. Most of the times, however, the preferred method of execution was the rope, with lamposts on the streets and around the SS headquarters being littered with hanging corpses. The higher level targets such as SSF and HSSF, the regional leaders of the SS in the German Gaus, were instead put on essentially show trials over the course of the week in the Volksgerichtshof, the People's Court, which was created on the 25th by Führer Directive empowering the Minister of Justice to put the traitors on televised trials. The SS leaders, still unaware of the vulnerability of their position, ratted out eachother to avoid sentences, many times they naively confessed their crimes in the belief they would be soon rehabilitated into the new VS or retired. It would be a shock to most when the great majority of them were given enormous sentences ranging from 10 years in a Concentration Camp to the Death Penalty.
To Eichmann's shock, he was not spared, as he was still an SS leader, the beheading of the SS leadership in the week-long purge would leave him more exposed than he believed he was. He was kidnapped in his home by the Volkssturm, with the SiPo refusing to betray the Führer openly with the streets yearning for blood, he was brought forwards to a Trial in the People's court where he was forced to confess many crimes, such as revealing that the SS was aware that Martin Bormann tempered with Hitler's last will and testament, admitting that Goebbels was the true successor as deemed by Hitler's Will, a great boon to Goebbels' own legitimacy as now he was empowered by the Führer's mandate himself, as the true testament was produced in court. Was that actually the real testament? It is still something many questioned but few had reason to not believe Eichmann, Kempka later served as witness to confirm that Rudolf Hess committed suicide after being given this Testament by Eichmann, believing himself unworthy to lead the Nation. Eichmann's confession did not save him, he was charged with bribery, conspiracy and high treason, being sentenced to death and executed by hanging on the 30th of April of 1960.
As May came, the Purge of the SS over the last week had been mostly fulfilled, the organization was culled to a level only compared to when it was only made up of a dozen bodyguards of Hitler, they became despised, synonymous with elitism, degeneracy and betrayal, with the Volkssturm swelling in numbers to over 200 thousand members by June as many former SS men ran to associate themselves with the winners. The position of Reichsführer SS was given to Kempka, as if to emphasize their new duty as bodyguards. Despite that, Goebbels continued to exclusively use VS members by his side, and with one enemy down, another domino full of blood fell as thousands of SS soldiers, officers and commanders would be purged, mockingly Goebbels compared them with the old Templar Order, supposedly honorable knights who became corrupted by Jewish influence and were purged for their sins. In one move, Joseph Goebbels, who held the command of the Volkssturm as it's nominal leader and had placed his loyal men in the Police and the Paramilitary apparatus, had become the most dangerous man in the Reich.
The Party Leadership and Albert Speer had realized too late what they had done, with the SS broken Goebbels turned his sights on the next traitors, determined to make this a Summer of Blood as June approached, determined to finally purify Germany of it's rot, and so he launched a grand propaganda campaign in May, through the Media he now monopolized and utilizing the Volkssturm as a show of force. Like he did as Gauleiter of Germania, with a monthly day of parade by the SA, the Gautag, now he would make a Fürhertag each month, a day of parade and celebration on the streets of Germany as the blackshirts were now replaced with the Crimsonshirts, with portraits of Goebbels and Hitler being held at equal height. He boosted Eichmann's testimony and made Hitler's true Will public, as well as his new success: His diaries. Goebbels had written in his diaries since his young days and now, although with heavy editions such as the removal of many scandalous affairs he held that contradicted his family story as being the model Aryan family, including his argument with Magda in 1938, as well as some earlier beliefs which directly contradicted Hitler's.
Goebbels' Diary, published under the same name by the NSDAP's Publishing House, it was an immediate hit, the Volkssturm distributed copies of it as gifts and awards, such as how Mein Kampf copies were given on celebrations such as birthdays and weddings. The members of the Party also were eager to prove their loyalty by fighting over being the first ones to buy and distribute copies of the book. Der Angriff published select parts of the diaries about important days, on radio there was a program which talked of Goebbels' writings on the determined day of the year and entire readings on audio were recorded in the new LP recorders. The cult of Personality around Goebbels Figure was starting to pick up a level that Hess' never had, especially as Goebbels propagandized himself as "The Great Apostle of National Socialism", the "Inheritor of Hitler's Legacy", the "Doctor of National Socialism" among many other titles. Accompanying that, the assets of the SS would be seized directly by the State from their Economic office, which included an enormous treasure of Reichsmarks collected from Donations, the evidence of corruption would give Goebbels the excuse to hunt down his next target: Albert Speer.
The SS ran a profitable scheme of cooperation with the Head of the German Labour Front Fritz Sauckel, the Minister of Food and Agriculture Herbert Backe, and the Minister of Economy Albert Speer, as well as with the close cooperation with the Circle of Friends of the Economy. This alliance was responsible for more deaths over the last two decades than any other corporate scheme in history, as in it was the key for the Slave system of 20th Century Europe developed through the Foreign Worker's Program. The Generalplan Ost, developed during the war by the SS in order to clear the eastern territories for colonization, included the mass extermination of ten of millions of Poles, Ukrainians, Russians, Belarussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, as well as many smaller nationalities from Jews and Roma to Chechens. Between 1941 and 1951, around 40 million people across the former Soviet Union were killed either by deliberate starvation, in death camps, Executions by the Einstaatzgruppen, etc. but this was far from something Goebbels had a problem with, if anything he saw it as at the very least their duty to clear the east for Lebensraum. What happened with the survivors is what he could use.
The land cleared out in the East was to be settled by Germans, while the slavs were divided between those who would be assimilated, small autonomous regions controlled by collaborators, and those who would be made to work their Blood debts towards the Reich, as National Socialism taught it to be the duty of the inferior peoples to serve the superior Aryans. In thesis, this is what was meant to happen, but the Lebensraum program found a problem, there were not many Germans who were willing to abandon everything to live a life in the east, a land which was greatly depopulated for colonists who did not wish to go. First Veteran Wehrmacht members and SS soldiers were given the land and the task of settlement, but when it came to civilians, the numbers were below the estimates, of the 10 million Germans estimated, only 6 million had taken up the offer by the time Hitler died, many were concerned with the partisans and the adventure made many of them be concerned over the costs. Meanwhile, the Foreign Workers program greatly expanded after the war, through the robust logistical network left by the war and the Concentration camp system, Sauckel and Speer would mediate agreements with the SS in the name of companies and organizations from State-led industries such as the Reichswerke and the Todt Organization to Industrial conglomerates such as IG Farben and Krupp.
The Dresdener Bank, which greatly expanded with it's association with the SS and by seizing the assets of banks in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Switzerland, would become a titanic company that partened with Heydrich when he was the Deputy Fürher when time came to offer a solution to the eastern settlement. The Dresdener Bank began to offer cheap loans with low interest for Germans who would head to the East. Meanwhile, German companies began replacing German Workers with more and more foreign workers, who were in high demand as they had such cheap lives that in Krupp industries it was easier to buy a new batch of workers than to improve the conditions of hundreds of thousands of Slavic Slaves. That was considered extremely wasteful, and even illegal, most of all was that such companies began to use the SS contacts to address their concerns with the Labor Union too, as even the corrupt Robert Ley was raising protests on the firing of German workers to be replaced by slavs. By coincidence, Ley died in 1956 of a supposed "Alcoholic Coma" after being in a party whose guest list included representatives of the Krupp Industries. Alfried Krupp, as per SS reports, held a conversation with Speer and Sauckel as they acted as their mediators in the scheme, and that included "making the drunk drink his fill". After Ley died, Sauckel was made leader of the Labor Union, silencing all protests on the removal of German workers and replacement of them with Slavs.
But what happened to these unemployed Germans, including from demobilized soldiers to small businessmen driven bankrupt by the ruling economic cartel? The Dresdener Bank happened, offering cheap loans for the purchase of Eastern lands as part of their "Patriotic Duty". They had no choice on the matter, and when these millions of hopeful colonists arrived in the East, to the point of swelling the number of Ostdeutsche from 8 to 15 million between 1952 and 1960 (including the 1 million Volga Germans and those born from the Lebensborn program), they were trapped. Many did not know how to farm the fields, being unable to pay back the debt, others were given poor soil, a few unfortunate enough to find out the "pastures" were actually the Pinsk Marshes or a forest in Lithuania. Many resorted to more loans in order to purchase slavic workers to plant the soil, which meant also paying "Service fees" from the SS to ensure they would not rebel and escape or kill them in the night. Others sold the lands at miserable prices to afford a ticket to one of the Eastern cities where they attempted to rebuild their lives with a debt on their heads. There were also those who had the lands seized by the bank and had to work the interest with one of the bank's partners such as in the Krupp Industry factories in the East.
This elaborate scheme, the personification of all the greed, cruelty and deceit that Goebbels denounced about the Burgeouise was like discovering a Gold Mine. Goebbels at first was outraged when reading these schemes after the SS files were seized in April, and soon he would ensure that all of this would be spread as far and wide as possible, he would awaken the fury of the German people and reveal the true reality of the Eastern Colonization. Naturally he omitted the details of the Slavic deaths by the State and instead placed the blame solely on the corporations of the "Kreis", the Circle, the Ring that would be revealed to the German Volk on the Friday, 17th of June of 1960. Der Angriff first gave the news of a great announcement to be made by the Führer of a shocking news which would be given. In the afternoon, Goebbels called a meeting of his Cabinet, which has not been called by a Führer since the days of Hitler. Calling up his ministers, he addressed them about a concerning discovery he had made, he carefully studied the reaction of his cabinet before continuing with a lie. He claimed there were news given by the SD that the State of Israel was planning an assault on the UAR to seize Jordan, using the instability between the two halves of the nation. He also asked for Speer for projections on the economic growth and for his Ministry to elaborate a new 4-year plan which he would be in charge of. As soon as Speer left the building, his very move was shadowed by the Gestapo under Müller, with the same being done to Sauckel, to Backe, to Krupp and the executives of the Dresdener Bank and the IG Farben conglomerate.
Then when the Fireside Chats program began, all of Germany was tuned to it, that is when Goebbels appeared but there were no chats this time, there were no smiles, instead the Führer appeared to speak to the Volk about a great scandal, an attack on Germany itself which was found in the files of the traitorous SS. For for over an hour the most powerful man in Europe, whose words were the truth and reality to millions upon millions of peoples, revealed the largest corruption scheme in European, perhaps of global history, of how some of the most powerful corporations in the world, alongside a continental-sized bank, the largest paramilitary organization in the world, and some of the most powerful men in Europe devised a scheme which led to the deaths of millions of workers, cost the jobs of millions of Germans over the last decade, and led to the impoverishment of the Reich. Of course this alone was but a symptom of the German economical system, but Goebbels would go on a televised speech blaming all the misery of the Reich on the Corporate elements of the Party, on the Exploitative megacorporations and cartels, on the corruption and callousness of a detached leadership corrupted by Jewish ideas and agents, on a legacy of corruption which eroded the Reich itself and, in it's greed, conspired to take over the Reich's very leadership.
As his speech was made, the Volkssturm mobilized from Belgium to the Volga, carefully positioned and prepared, rallying the mobs with Goebbels' words spoken live, with the German eastern colonists aroused to fight their exploiters. The houses of Managers and overseers of the great industries were ransacked, department stores were burned by mobs, even factories were taken over by workers with the Swastika. The Ministers would be captured in their homes and offices, as well as an enormous list of associates that even included their family members. Alfried Krupp was not given a trial, because the Volkssturm unit sent to arrest him lost control of the mob, who lynched him and his wife on the streets and threw their body parts at the entrance gate to one of his factories where the body was set alight by the rioters. Within one night Germany would fall into anarchy in Industrial cities as workers even average Germans blamed all their economic ills on the great Titans of Industry, a furious storm of fire led by the Bloodstained Swastika would engulf the Reich and by the Morning, the executives and state officers alike were imprisoned, while Goebbels would sign a new Directive, Nationalizing the Assets of the IG Farben member-companies, of the Krupp Industries, of the Dresdener Bank, of the Siemens Industries, as well as all those which were members of the SS Circle of Friends.
Albert Speer would be sentenced lightly in his trial, 10 years in a Concentration Camp, he was able to convince the judges that much of it happened without his knowledge and blamed several of his subordinates, in fact he helped Goebbels so much by naming his enemies that the Führer had commuted his death sentence to only 10 years. Sauckel and Backe would end up being hanged, alongside several others of the "Corporate Clique" Speer built around himself. The Reich seized billions of Reichsmarks from the possession of the enormous companies which were now put under State control. Goebbels' populism only boosted his popularity as he publicly burned the debt registries of the Dresdner Bank as it was integrated into the Reichsbank. The foreign workers would now be limited to only 30% of a company's employees and could not hold management positions, which opened up new and old jobs back to the German people. Corporations would now be founded from the carcass of the Megacorps of the Reich. The Führer had won once again, and another domino fell, stained with blood.
(The following scene must be read while listening to "Light of the Seven" by Ramin Djawadi)
Kaufmann had not survived for so long by making mistakes, he had not risen up the bloody ladder of the Party by being principled but by choosing the winner. He struggled to have Hamburg, to wrestle it from it's greedy tinpot of a mayor, his adulation of the Führer was worth the wealthiest city in the Reich. When Wegener and Heydrich were throwing knives at eachother he watched from the sidelines, and once both were weakened he picked his allies and went forwards, becoming the second most powerful man in the Reich. And yet he made one mistake that night, when he spoke to Eichmann and they made the fateful choice which saved the world, he had the wrong man in the room with him. The SS did not have one copy of Hitler's testament of course, if you can forge the signature of a decaying man then you could have chosen anyone to have been the Führer, truth is that the truth never mattered, what mattered was who he and Eichmann would choose. And he chose Goebbels, a man he thought he could trust, but he could not, he was just as mad as Hess, but with the calculating mind of Hitler himself.
He wanted to appease the masses, he wanted to make sure he would not be lynched, the Reich was faltering and the one man who could keep the people by their side was Goebbels. In hindsight, that was a lie, just from replacing Hess and ending the war they could have ended the protests, Speer was the one who should have been chosen, or even himself, he should have risked it that night and laid his claim, he had spent the previous months making alliances so why not use them for himself? But no, he had hesitated like the fool he was, and now the SS was gone, Speer was gone, Sauckel was gone, Krupp was gone, Eichmann was gone, the streets were out of control and he had to find one way to end this. He still had the party, the Gauleiters, the men who still held a shred of sanity.
So he found a loophole, or rather Hans Frank found one in Wegener's Constitution. It is specified that the NSDAP was the single official Party of the Reich, it was right there that it claimed that the Party and State were connected under the leadership of the Führer, but what if the Führer was no longer the Führer? The NSDAP had the Small Senate for this, for all the great decisions, and did the late Adolf Hitler not also use the Party mechanisms to be rid of men like Drexler? Like the Strasser Brothers? They can expel a member of the NSDAP, and there was no rule in the constitution which claimed that the Führer was not subject to the rules of the Party regimen. What was the point of it? He had reached out to the Wehrmacht, who swore their oaths to the Führer, but the swearing was not yet changed from the Hess era, it was an oath to Adolf Hitler and to the office of the Führer, not to the man Joseph Goebbels. The Volkssturm would be a problem, but Wenck had assured him that the moment Goebbels was removed, the Wehrmacht would no longer be bound to him, they would initiate protocol Walküre and secure Germania as they have done twice before, one this very year, they had no sympathy for the VS and the aristocratic Wehr officers were not kind to Goebbels' rhetoric.
It was the 30th of July, the Night from the Sartuday to the Sunday, when the Gauleiters made their move. They stayed overnight from the Small Senate meeting on Friday to deal with another liquidation of assets from a Nationalized Company, as well as the NSDAP membership of the arrested executives of it. The Small Senate members remained in Germania and Albert Foster, the President of the Small Senate, called an extraordinary meeting at night to settle this matter once and for all. Goebbels was asleep, according to his sources and knowing his routine, they would have a limited amount of time to meet before he could react. The building's lights were turned on only when all were seated, but to his dismay over a third of the Small Senate was not there. That was no problem, only a majority was necessary and soon the meeting would start with Kaufmann being given the word.
"It is the duty of every National Socialist to ensure that the Reich is held orderly, with it's strength integral for the security of the German Volk and of the Aryan Civilization. The actions of Party Member Goebbels are opposed to such virtuous goals and the Principles of National Socialism. For his actions to his conduct, not fitting those of a National Socialist, in my quality as Party Chancellor, I call for a vote of removal of Paul Joseph Goebbels from the ranks of the National Socialist German Worker's Party!"
They all applauded, no one wanted to speak next, everything was proceeding smoothly, but why was he still sweating? Why was that cold freezing his skin in the middle of the summer? The votes began to be made and he went for the telephone, a private line connecting the Small Senate Building and the Army barracks, he reached for it but there was no signal, to his despair the call was not reaching the Wehrmacht. That is when they all heard from the radio, when the tally of the votes was only halfway done, the voice of Joseph Goebbels spoke in his low and severe tone, for all of Germania to hear. He dropped the telephone on the floor and realized what the cold was, but worse, he began to feel the heat.
"Volksgenossen, it is with a heavy heart that I give you the news of a great betrayal of the Reich, those men who I once trusted, of who we all trusted, the leaders of the Party themselves, have revealed the treachery and rot in their hearts. Deceived by the lies of the Jew, they gather even now and conspire against the Nation and People-"
Wir sind des Geyers Schwarzer Haufen
Hei a o ho!
Und wolle mit Tyrannen raufen
Hei a o ho!
The panic spread as the chanting was heard, these man, all powerful lords of their own fiefdoms, who decided on the life and death of millions, looked around and the voting never finished, Forster himself was the first one to leave the podium and try to run. Hans Frank came next, running as quickly as his fat figure could carry him towards the exit. Erich Koch shoved others out of the way trying to reach the exit. The guards of the SS, now only reduced to mere mortals, have looked at the windows and saw the enormous crowd wielding torches. The entire building was well furnished, with wood and carpets, tapestry, all of these symbols of opulence which now were nothing but flammable fuel in Karl's terrified eyes as he realized he had unconsciously attempted to jump over the tables to reach a back exit, only to fall on his leg and feel a sharp pain as he could not get himself back on his feet.
Alfred Meyer, Hans Frank, Robert Wagner, Albert Forster, Erich Koch, Franz Maierhofer, Franz Hofer, Philipp Bouhler, and so many others of the most powerful men in the Party, men who voted for Speer, men who were allied with Karl Kaufmann, men who were allied with Wegener, with Heydrich, with Bormann, with so many others, and now they were absolutely powerless. The doors were barred shut, he knew there was no way out, Hofer was still desperate enough to jump to his death from the window into the crowd below. The men of the SS still attempted to fire back, but the Volkssturm and it's mob had assembled real fire. Someone had ratted them out, and then he realized that Karl Gerland, a man he had contacted who claimed he was dissatisfied with Goebbels' wanton brutality towards Party members, was nowhere to be seen tonight.
The smoke came from down the stairs as those who went to the floors below ran back upwards, and while trembling in pain, Kaufmann still used a desk to try to stand, leaning his arm on it he saw a torch thrown inside, then there was a crash and screams as a glass bottle full of alcohol with a burning piece of cloth fell and splattered it's flaming liquid on the podium, right beneath the mighty Iron Eagle, the Party Eagle which held the Swastika and it's laurels. So this is how once the mightiest, the best, the vanguard of National Socialism, would perish. As the flames grew higher and hotter, he no longer felt pain, he no longer felt the cold, he only felt the fire, and that same fanatical and irate fire, he knew, would soon consume all of Europe.
