Just 120 kilometres south-east of Munich, holidaying Germans had visited Obersalzberg in both summer and winter since the 1800s, and in 1916, a businessman from Hamburg by the name of Otto Winter built the small Haus Wachenfeld at nearby Berchtesgaden. The chalet might well have passed unknown into history had it not been for Herr Winter’s widow renting it in 1928to a man named Adolf Hitler. So taken with the beauty of the place was Hitler that in 1933 he purchased it outright with funds raised from the sale of his political manifesto, Mein Kampf.
Renamed the Berghof by Hitler, a massive refurbishment and reconstruction followed in several stages between 1935 and 1939, and what had once been a simple holiday chalet grew to become a huge complex of estates for high-ranking Nazis such as Göring and Bormann, along with a large landing strip and security barracks, tunnels and bunkers for a large contingent of the 1st SS Shock Division, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (Hitler’s Bodyguard).
Many guests visited the Berghof in the decade leading up to the outbreak of war, including such notable figures as former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the Aga Khan, Chancellor of Austria Kurt von Schuschnigg, and the then current British PM, Neville Chamberlain. All had graced the great halls and surrounding countryside at one time or another, although these facts gave little solace to Reichsmarschall Kurt Reuters as he and Albert Schiller accompanied The Führer on a walk through the mountain countryside that day between the main buildings and the Mooslahnerkopf Teehaus, just a kilometre or so away across a small valley.
The afternoon stroll was an almost daily event for the Chancellor as part of his fitness regime whenever staying at Berchtesgaden, and the man had no intention of letting Reuters’ arrival gets in the way of his enjoyment of it. It was under those circumstances that the Reichsmarschall and his aide found themselves sitting with The Führer on a wooden bench, part way along the walk at a scenic point overlooking the entire valley.
Numerous political discussions had been held at that lookout over the years, and today was no exception as a quartet of heavily-armed SS guards watched the entire proceedings from barely out of earshot. First and foremost on the agenda that evening was of course the unexpected the arrival of the Hindsight group at Scapa Flow, along with the resultant loss of the majority of the New Eagles’ jet aircraft.
It was painfully obvious to both that The Führer was mightily unimpressed, and they were well aware of the reasons why: the Wehrmacht — Reuters’ Wehrmacht — had been presented with its first outright defeat. Admittedly, the setbacks were minor in terms of the progress of an entire war, but they’d been the first nevertheless, and there was now a look in The Führer’s eyes that hadn’t been there before. Trustworthy and able as Reichsmarschall Reuters was, he’d now also been shown to be fallible.
Adolf Hitler was characteristically a man of unshakeable faith in himself and extremely little faith in others, one of the reasons behind his failure during the latter part of the Realtime war to place any significant trust in his subordinates. It’d taken Reuters all seven of the years since their arrival and a spate of uncontested victories in Poland and in the West to obtain the Führer’s complete trust, and that’d only been accomplished in the face of heavy opposition from Hess, Göring, Göbbels and Bormann.
It was also true that the Chancellor’s trust in others could be unpredictably fickle, particularly in the face of even the smallest of failures, and that problem was often exacerbated when the situation in question that had gone awry hadn’t been a plan of his own devising. Many ideas and projects Reuters had wanted pressed forward had already been forced ‘underground’ by the Führer’s prejudices and apprehensions.
In his hands, Hitler held a folder filled with black and white photographs of the airfield at Scapa Flow. All four aircraft — the F-35E, F-22, Galaxy and KC-10A — were clearly visible, and the fact that the F-35 Lightning and F-22 Raptor were the only two dedicated air combat jets in existence on the planet hadn’t slipped past the German Chancellor.
“You say, then, Herr Reichsmarschall, that this will not alter the strategic situation?” His voice carried an almost nervous tone.
“Mein Führer, this alters nothing…” Reuters lied outright. “They have only two combat aircraft. Although it’s true these aircraft could outfight the remaining jets we possess or any other fighters we might throw against them in a fair fight, we still need to keep in mind that no matter what their incredible capabilities, they are just two aircraft and we will not provide them with any opportunity for a ‘fair fight’. Should they be used in regular offensive operations against us, they’ll eventually be shot down — that’s a certainty — and I doubt that they’ll ever be risked for that reason.”
“Exactly what and who are we up against?” The Chancellor found personalities important in leadership — something he’d used to immense effect in his own rise to fame and power — and he placed a lot of stock in what kind of people he was up against as an enemy, even if they were ‘of course’ ultimately inferior.
“Mein Führer, it appears we’re faced with a task force sent from our future much as the New Eagles were,” Reuters began, reaching out to draw a particular picture from the collection inside the folder and producing an extremely grainy, many-times-enlarged shot that was still obviously of Max Thorne’s head and upper torso. “I’d hazard a guess the unit’s commanded by this man — Maxwell Thorne. Once a pilot of the Royal Australian Air Force, and also a member of the British Secret Service from my time, he was also involved in attempts to prevent us from carrying out our original mission to return to this era. He’s a dogged and resourceful man; extremely capable in his duties and vehemently opposed to National Socialism.” Reuters was no true Nazi himself, but he was happy to use any tool to sway the support of the Chancellor.
“This is the man who represents the most danger to us?”
“There’s no direct danger, Mein Führer: their forces are much smaller than ours were originally, and we’ve also had six years of relative peace in which to prepare for this war. These new enemies will have none of these advantages. Their historical knowledge may assist them initially, but consider how history has already changed: reality and their understanding of the ‘old’ past grow further apart with each passing day. After Seelöwe, they’ll be stranded and left without a safe haven in the Atlantic, and I guarantee you they’ll not reach America, or anywhere else!”
“On that note, Herr Reichsmarschall, what further information do you have for me concerning plans for Seelöwe?” This was another matter that left Hitler feeling a great deal of apprehension. Although initially almost certain in his own mind that Britain would sue for peace following the demise of France and the Low Countries, he’d finally been convinced otherwise by Reuters and by the continued aggressive stance of Great Britain herself. There was also reluctance on his part regarding the dangers of an amphibious operation against the British, and as Reuters had now been shown to be fallible, what was there preventing this idea from failure also?