As Albert pondered this, he could finally see how Germany would—in one form or another—survive a thousand years. And slowly, with the patience of a true German craftsman standing at his work bench, Germany would expand throughout Europe like a flower blossoming in spring—slowly, imperceptibly, but with unstoppable inevitability. And the superiority of Germany’s education and training system and its ethic of work would dominate the world far more effectively than anything that could have been done by the strutting, chaotic and flatulent Austrian with chronically bad stomach, rotting teeth and blind hatreds.
After dinner, the leaders of the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe chatted contentedly over cigars and brandy.
Jodl said,
“With the immediate executions of Koch, Greiser, and Himmler, the Reich is starting to be purged of the poisonous elements. Also, executing Rosenberg was quite useful—the man was like a mad Nietzsche.”
All listened in silence, then Rundstedt explained how the Ukrainians were shaping up well,
“As we discussed in early September, German NCOs have been promoted and have been promised small lots to farm after we gain an Armistice. They have been instructed to show the Ukrainians how we Germans are their friends against the Russians, who they all hate to a man. Of course, we did have a few rotten apples, as all armies do, but we removed them—men who have drank a little too much from the poisoned chalice of Übermensch. But, all in all, extremely good progress. And the same goes for the Baltics. We only have to look to the Roman Empire and how it expanded by having the Roman NCOs marry the local girls to increase the breeding stock. Worked for them, no reason to believe it will not work for us. Just as the Romans made Latin the lingua franca of the time, we can today do the same with German.”
Jodl continued,
“Romania is in a very strong position now with the addition of the German troops freed from the madness of trying to take Leningrad and Moscow in the North in the middle of the fucking winter; there was never any reason to repeat the little Corsican’s disaster of 1812. And in the south, Paulus and his Sixth Army are doing very well—it’s hard for the Russian tanks to attack us when they have no fuel. Our own fuel ferries across the northern Black Sea are working well—we moved to the Black Sea all the Kriegsmarine submarines operating in the Mediterranean and half of the Atlantic wolf packs attacking the American convoys to Britain. Our U-boats are sinking any Russian surface raiders in the Black Sea—in the last convoy, not one German oiler was lost. Field Marshal Milch’s Condors are providing excellent intelligence for our U-boat commanders in the Black Sea.”
At this last comment Milch beamed and added,
“Next week we intend to start attacking rail links from the Baku oil fields directly from our forward bases in Maykop. We have specially modified the Ju-88 with extra fuel tanks and we’ve removed all the armor and armaments. As there are little or no Russian aircraft, this seems a reasonable approach, and they will be accompanied by flights of 190s. And this will stop all oil to the Russians, while preserving the oil for our aircraft and tanks when we reach Baku.”
Jodl disclosed,
“And Turkey is close to entering on our side. Of course, with forward aerodromes in Turkey, we will be able to go south to what is now called Iran, as well as to the Suez Canal. Our strategy is to strengthen the southern flanks of Bulgaria and Romania to fight the British on our terms on our ground, not in Egypt and Libya where we have to depend on the Wops to ferry fuel across the Mediterranean where the British Royal Navy is still strong and still dangerous. And we can always depend on the Wops to be undependable, so we need consider the Italians as our adversities. I have assigned a tank commander to Bulgaria who did well last summer in France when he forced the crossing of the Meuse with his 7th Panzer—the Gespensterdivision, as it is called. He’s a bit of a showman, but there is nothing wrong with that. And I think this man—Rommel—will provide useful support for Paulus’s right flank. This will be even more the case when Turkey joins us. Also, the Romanians are morally weak, like the Italians—I’ve seen reports of some Romanian army staff officers wearing rouge and propositioning young boys on the streets of Bucharest; they make the French look pious and devout.”
Jodl shared with all the other officers an abhorrence of this depravity—how the late, unlamented Chancellor could stomach the likes of Röhm was beyond his understanding.
As a young officer, Jodl was told of the horrors of one evening in ’01 when the Kaiser was entertaining Fritz Krupp. The centerpiece of the entertainment for that night was the brilliant and scintillating performance by a ballet dancer in a glorious pink tutu that was finished with the most magnificent mock sapphires. Around and around in the center of the huge parquet wooden dance floor the dancer twirled. Up and down the room, teasingly towards the two men who sat together on a small elevated stage. Fritz whispered to the Kaiser the joys of such a performance. God was in his heaven and the two men were so very happy.
Then, as if the devil was watching and had decided to destroy this simple human joy, the dancer—now in the middle of the room—stopped twirling, looked first at Fritz for a brief instance, and then at the Kaiser and then let out a terrible, muffled moan. Grabbing his chest the dancer dropped to the floor. Dead. The ten men in the room made no sound. Then the Kaiser commanded them to get the Field Marshal out of this tutu and back into his uniform. There was a horrible delay of twenty minutes until the dead Field Marshal’s uniform was eventually located (he had secreted it in the back of a locker in the Ladies Gowning Room). Then, the real disaster started—rigor mortis had already set in and so it was impossible to dress the Field Marshal who was massively corpulent and whose uniform had to be specially made in Berlin at a tailor who specialized in the extremely obese. For reasons of decency, Fritz Krupp and the Kaiser had left while the other eight men tried—and failed—to dress the dead Field Marshal. Remembering that terrible evening, Jodl understood why the British at the time called these perversions the “German Disease.”
“Of course, I am getting daily telegrams from the Duce, who is alternating between threatening and begging, but we can safely discount him. I think it might be worth doing a small Italian Anschluss when the time is ripe—I know from our agents that the Vatican would welcome that, especially if we bribe the Pope with significant power in a new Italian puppet government, thus returning the Italians to their natural order—a cabal of back-stabbing city-states so clearly described in The Prince. I will now let Milch tell you of his excellent progress.”
Milch had spent too long associated with the politicians to remain completely untainted. Like his late boss, Milch liked the good life, but at a human level, not the caricature that was the dead Reichsmarschall. Milch provided a sea change—he was competent, modest, a good listener, and above all, worked well with the Wehrmacht.
“Just as Jodl has done with the Bolsheviks, so we started our little circus by asking one question: In today’s modern, scientific war what are the enemy’s greatest weaknesses: civilian morale, lack of soldiers, our U-boats, lack of planes, what? My Luftwaffe research department boffins have come up with a three very interesting—and I think quite surprising—answers.”