Todd Stone
Kriegspieclass="underline" A Novel of Tomorrow's Europe
For Nick and Sarah:
Forever Young.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a great deal of thanks to a number of people whose advice, patience, support, and friendship made this novel possible.
To Ed Ruggero, who asked the right question and who led the way. To Jim, a real professional in the business of putting words together. To Gus, who kept my spirits up. To Riley the Obscure, and Deb, and Annette, and the mob of colleagues at the USMA, now scattered wherever the army has sent them. To close friends in Chicago and Bloomington who read carefully and waited patiently, and who believed in the project, even when I didn’t. To Joyce and John Flaherty, who I got out of bed early and of whom I asked the impossible — they delivered.
Special thanks to Dale Wilson at Presidio Press. Dale wields an editor’s pen with an unmatched grace and a special — and much appreciated— concern for an author’s ego.
And to a bunch of “Black Lions” and “Nightfighters,” all my best.
Todd Stone
PROLOGUE
WEST BERLIN, Nov. 10—Tens of thousands of East and West Berliners swarmed through open checkpoints in this once-divided city that is divided no more, holding a massive celebration around, near and on top of the symbol of Communist repression — the Berlin Wall. After a week of on-again, off-again immigration restrictions, East German officials yielded to intense pressure and announced a free-travel policy.
WEST BERLIN, Nov. 11—Using ropes, axes, sledgehammers, ice picks and even their bare hands, citizens of East and West Berlin today pulled 12-foot chunks from the Berlin Wall. Ecstasy shown on the faces of young and old alike as the great slabs of reinforced concrete came crashing down, effectively bringing down with it any remaining political division of this city.
WEST BERLIN, Nov. 12—Today eager East German construction workers began to dismantle the Berlin Wall. At Potsdamer Platz, once the city’s central traffic point — a point that has been closed off for almost fifty years by concrete, steel, barbed wire and machine guns— crowds on both sides sang and danced in the streets as the crews removed section after section of the wall. The two groups of celebrants, totaling about one hundred thousand, finally surged through the gap to unite in a massive, euphoric embrace.
West Germany’s chancellor announced that he would begin talks with both East German officials and members of the “Big Four” Allied powers next week on the problems and prospects for a reunified Germany. According to one administration source, reunification “will undoubtedly occur within the next year or two. With the wall down I can’t see any other outcome. It’s just a matter of time.”
Although the sudden prospect of a merged East and West Germany caught administration officials in the United States by surprise, reliable sources indicate that planning teams from both the East and West German governments and military forces are already quietly negotiating, identifying financial, military and social areas of concern.
BERLIN (AP) Feb. 24—The euphoria that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall several years ago is no more than a faded memory in this city that was once an economically unshakable giant. Euphoria has been replaced by frustration and helplessness that seem to grip both the man on the street and the decision makers in the German Parliament.
“They promised us freedom and prosperity, and we got our freedom,” said Heinz Durdorf, a former East German engineer who is now a member of the growing ranks of unemployed in this country. “But what good is freedom if you are only free to starve? Look at me, two advanced degrees and ten years as an executive, yet there is no work— not even hauling garbage. The government has been worthless. Someone must do something.”
Durdorf is representative of the gloom that is settling over the nation. To combat the huge drain on the national budget, the vaunted German social services — the economic safety net once held up as a model to the world — have been cut so radically and repeatedly in the past five years that Durdorf and millions like him fall through the net without notice. Even the slim checks that Durdorf does receive from social services do little good. Prices are up another 16 percent since January 1, and the devaluation of the deutsche mark last Friday has led analysts to predict that German inflation, which seems to have a life of its own, will continue to rise out of control. So, too, will taxes. In a country where tax bills would make any American homeowner faint from “sticker shock,” many like Durdorf are wondering aloud what they are getting in return.
How bad is it? Bad enough to drive an ordinarily orderly German public into the streets. This week, in three major cities, demonstrations broke out with a violence and vehemence that caught authorities by surprise.
There’s an even uglier side to these protests: Last Tuesday in Frankencitz, protesters unfurled several banners that read “Throw out the cosmopolitans.” The term “cosmopolitans” was a thin euphemism for Jews and an indicator of growing anti-Semitism. Most observers agree that the Bonn government did not help its image when it called out the troops to quell the protest. The soldiers restored order, but at a cost of four dead and dozens injured.
Such events create a bleak outlook for investors. Despite the careful planning and the billions pumped into rebuilding, economic recovery in the East has stopped dead. With the rise in civil unrest, several major financial institutions have been quietly withdrawing their funds from Germany. Capital is as scarce as jobs. Germany — once a major player in world financial markets and economic competition, once the nation others both anticipated and feared would step into the power vacuum caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union — is now not just on the sidelines; it looks as if Germany has been cut from the team.
As the United States moves to withdraw the few American forces still in Germany, serious questions remain about the future of the federal republic. Heinz Durdorf is right: Someone must do something. The question is, What?
ONE
As the soft light of dawn spread over the valley floor below him, Col. Alexander Stern looked down from his hilltop vantage point at the two “dead” M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. He pulled a sheaf of three-by-five note cards from his battle dress jacket pocket and cocked his head as he made some mental calculations. The loss of the two vehicles would, he reckoned, equate to four dead and two wounded crewmen. He began to write, scratching down notes about the scouts’ poor use of terrain and their refusal to dismount to peer over the next rise, instead choosing to drive across the valley in the open. You can’t just go along for the ride, he thought as he studied the casualties of war, you have to get out and see what’s there.