September 1, 1939
Northern Germany, Berlin, Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) Headquarters
12:00
“These… damn bastards!”
Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler threw down the copy of today's Frankfurter Zeitung that his subordinates had brought for their report.
[SS Attacks Germany!]
[SS Captain Naujocks and His Agents Attacked German Radio Station]
[The SS Attempts to Plunge Germany into Another Great War]
'Operation Himmler,' carried out under Hitler's orders to start a war by any ans necessary, was completely seen through by the coup forces, and when their attempt was exposed in detail, the public and the Wehrmacht were in an uproar.
“How the hell did those bastards know our entire plan!”
Himmler was about to burst with frustration. The Abwehr had indeed procured the Polish uniforms and firearms for the plan.
But how did they know the operation would take place in Gleiwitz with just that information and manage to stop it? He couldn't fathom it at all.
The fact that a certain captain had personally pointed out Gleiwitz as the optimal location to stage an invasion by Polish forces, leading to its discovery after an Abwehr investigation, was sothing Himmler could never have imagined.
“Heil Hitler! Reichsführer-SS! The Abwehr headquarters is already empty!”
“What?!”
“I'm sorry, sir. All we found at the scene was the body of SS Lieutenant Colonel Bamler.
Judging by the state of the body, it seems they left the location at dawn today.”
Himmler clutched the back of his neck.
The discovery of Operation Himmler and its leak to the press were so fast that he suspected the Abwehr bastards had cooperated with the resistance, but the Abwehr had already fled while everyone was distracted by the assassination attempt on the Führer.
To think that their pretense of cooperating with the Nazis, like appointing Bamler—whom the SS had planted—as a departnt head, was all to make him let his guard down!
“Heydrich, that idiot! He screwed everything up!”
Co to think of it, Heydrich, whom he had discovered and favored, had ungratefully been keeping him in check and overtly displaying his ambition.
“No way… he didn't leak the information and side with them, did he…?”
Operation Himmler was a top-secret plan.
At most, only Hitler, himself, the operatives, and Heydrich, who oversaw the operation, knew about it.
If it was leaked, then Heydrich couldn't be trusted either.
“Heil Hitler, Reichsführer-SS!”
“What is it this ti!”
As Himmler was lost in thought, another SS officer entered, and Himmler reacted irritably.
“S-Sorry, sir. A telegram…”
The officer hesitated, then approached and handed over the telegram when Himmler held out his hand.
[SS training camp at Wewelsburg Castle is under attack by coup forces. Nurically inferior, require support.
- Paul Hausser, SS-Gruppenführer]
“This is… damn it…”
Wewelsburg Castle was a Renaissance-style castle located in western Germany.
Himmler had seized the castle to establish an SS training camp, intending to make his SS an honorable chivalric order and principality for Hitler in the great Aryan nation he would build.
The vision of Hitler's Great Germanic Reich, which once seed so close, and of himself as its honorable Grand Master, his dream, was crumbling in an instant.
Just then, the phone rang, and Himmler imdiately picked up the receiver.
[Himmler!]
Himmler's face lit up at the sound of G??ring's voice.
“Senior! We are under attack! What should we do?”
Unlike Rudolf Hess, the nominal Deputy Führer, he was Hitler's de facto successor and the second-in-command of Germany.
In this situation, he was the closest thing to a national leader.
Besides, he was a comrade from the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair and the only person in the Nazi Party with whom he had no conflicts of opinion, so for now, he was the one Himmler could trust the most.
[I've summoned the Luftwaffe! We have to buy ti until the Führer wakes up!]
“Can we trust those Wehrmacht bastards?”
[We can't trust them! Only trust soone like Reichenau!]
Himmler bit his lip.
“As expected, the regular army can't be trusted.
If only the Führer had given the SS more military authority so that a more moral citizen army could protect Germany…”
After ousting Blomberg and Fritsch, G??ring ascended to the rank of Field Marshal as he desired, but Himmler failed to get the expected approval for the expansion of the SS's military power.
It was a asure taken by Hitler, who rembered the precedent of the SA, which had grown so large that it beca a threat to the regi, but in the face of this situation, he felt a sense of resentnt towards Hitler.
Of course, in the original history, the Waffen-SS (Waffen Schutzstaffel), which Himmler founded after the start of WWII while talking about a "more moral citizen army," earned a notoriety unparalleled in the world.
[What are you talking about! You need to pull yourself together at a ti like this! Summon all SS units and defend Berlin!]
“Understood, Senior.
I'm counting on you.”
Of course, Himmler had no choice but to follow G??ring's orders.
[And one more thing. Public opinion, both among the people and the military, is terrible.
Even though those heinous traitors attempted to assassinate the Führer, there are flyers going around saying the SS tried to start a war! Try to persuade Doctor Goebbels!]
“What is Doctor Goebbels doing right now?”
[He's sitting in front of the Führer's hospital room praying! Isn't this kind of damn propaganda his specialty! He hates
so much, so you go and persuade him!"]
Himmler let out a hollow laugh. Goebbels was competent but eccentric, and fanatically loyal only to Hitler, on bad terms with almost everyone in the Nazi Party.
Especially G??ring.
“Hah… Understood, Senior.
I'll try to persuade him.”
[Thanks, I'm counting on you! I'll go negotiate with the Wehrmacht!]
Himmler slamd the receiver down and irritably struck his desk.
As soon as this incident broke out, the Berlin branch of the Frankfurter Zeitung, which had exposed the SS's plot across Berlin and all of Germany, had already completely cleared out.
I told them we should have shut down that damn newspaper when Ribbentrop died, but Doctor Goebbels stopped it, leading to this ss.
“Tch, that stupid Führer-worshipping fanatic dares to call himself a doctor!”
Of course, he was hardly one to talk about being a fanatic.
---
September 1, 1939
Central Germany, 9th Military District, Kassel, and Frankfurt, the provisional capital of the new German governnt
20:00
As the long day drew to a close, I successfully completed the raid on the Buchenwald concentration camp and returned to Frankfurt.
There were so many prisoners in poor condition among those we liberated that it took quite so ti, even with vehicles.
But regardless of the ti, the governnt building in Frankfurt was as bright as day.
“The Ruhr industrial area has been secured!”
“Security managent of the Siegfried Line has been entrusted to the Freikorps, and General Witzleben is advancing into northern Bavaria, while General Hamrstein advances into southern Bavaria!”
“General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb's army is engaged with Paul Hausser's SS at Wewelsburg!”
Inside the governnt building, people were frantically busy receiving a flurry of reports, telegrams, and phone calls.
“Hausser is no incompetent.
Our forces are small, so we can't afford heavy casualties!”
“But if we can't capture Wewelsburg, the core SS base, securing the 11th Military District will be impossible!”
“If we leave them be, General Lutz's panzer units advancing on Berlin could be surrounded.”
While the staff officers were wracking their brains in discussion, Ludwig Beck was in the middle of a phone call.
“Look here, Rundstedt. I was kicked out for demanding a reinvestigation of the incident, just as you requested! You're not unaware of that, are you!”
[Orders have co down to Army Group South, Beck.
I've ignored them for now, but I hear G??ring is visiting the Army General Staff. If an order cos in the na of the provisional head of state, I won't be able to ignore it any longer.
]
“We're trying to re-establish His Majesty the Emperor's governnt! Isn't Manstein there? Didn't you hear anything from him? Put him on.”
[…I'll call you later.
]
“Hey, Rundstedt! Don't hang up! Hey…”
The call ended, and I saluted Beck, who looked quite dejected.
“I have returned, Colonel General.”
“…You're back, Captain Schacht.”
Once the plan was in motion, Colonel General Beck had shed his previous indecisiveness and was working with great fervor.
He was the one who appointed the retired generals Oswald Lutz and Hamrstein, and many of the units currently advancing on the front lines and the staff officers here had followed him out of respect for his character.
However, even he and the other key figures of the coup couldn't let go of the rosy expectation that the Wehrmacht would join them if they declared the restoration of the Emperor's governnt.
“With all due respect, Colonel General, the banner of restoring His Majesty the Emperor's governnt alone will not be enough to win the support of all of Germany.”
Perhaps soone like Doctor Goerdeler, a fervent hater of democracy and an ardent monarchist, might be different, but the majority are already accustod to a Germany without a Kaiser.
The era of obeying the Emperor's command is over.
“So, what are you suggesting?
“Even if we proceed with the restoration of the monarchy, it's realistically impossible to bring back the forr Emperor, who is being watched by Britain and France due to the last Great War.
We could inadvertently turn Britain and France into enemies in the middle of our civil war.”
Britain and France were inford by the Abwehr about the Gleiwitz radio station incident and furiously denounced the Nazis.
Not only that, but the Kordt brothers, who are on site, are trying to give the best possible impression of our new governnt, and the first impression doesn't seem to be bad.
At least for now, we, as the German resistance that rose up against the SS and the Nazi dictatorship trying to start a war, are receiving support from the anti-war public in Britain and France.
Right-wing politicians in Britain and France might be licking their lips at the vulnerability of a Germany in civil war. But just as the German people and military feared a new Great War, so do the people of Britain and France.
The perception that war was inevitable because the Nazis were going too far was only just beginning to spread; if Germany was fighting the Nazis on its own, their public opinion is that they don't want to step in and shed blood unnecessarily.
But what if we try to bring back the mustached Kaiser, Wilhelm II, who is branded as the cause of the last Great War, under the guise of restoring the monarchy? It's tantamount to spoon-feeding Britain and France a pretext to intervene in a Germany already chaotic from civil war.
“Ultimately, victory in a civil war goes to the side that wins the people's support. Why not enthrone His Highness Crown Prince Wilhelm as the new Emperor and re-establish the parliant? We enthrone an Emperor, but follow a model similar to Britain's.”
“What is this nonsense! Who are you to dare speak of the throne!”
Doctor Goerdeler, who was listening from the side, flew into a rage and pointed a finger at , but Ludwig Beck listened silently, albeit with a slightly displeased expression.
“There's forr Mayor Adenauer, and among the figures we rescued from Dachau and Buchenwald are many politicians well-known to the public.
If we declare we will re-establish a governnt of the people, they will all cooperate with us, and public opinion will follow. We can definitely turn the tide.”
The exposé of the Gleiwitz radio station incident has already captured the hearts of the German people who want to avoid war.
The tragedy that occurred at the Buchenwald concentration camp, which will soon be publicized, is a horrific atrocity that would enrage any normal human being.
If we can just show that we are not trying to re-establish an absolute imperial regi or a governnt run by the military, but are forming a governnt of the people, internal support in Germany will follow quite naturally.
The Wehrmacht isn't going to choose between Hitler and the Emperor anyway; they'll decide their support based on who looks more likely to win.
So, this is a fight we can win, if only they are willing to accept it.
“I've heard enough of this madness! His Majesty Emperor Wilhelm II is the legitimate head of the House of Hohenzollern, and the only one with the right to wear the German crown!”
But, as expected, the hardline monarchist Doctor Goerdeler flew into a fury and unleashed his anger on .
“And you dare to speak about the throne?! Do you think we are doing this to re-establish that weakling Weimar Republic that was played by Hitler!”
“Then do you have a way to declare an empire right now without Britain and France intervening?! They have been continuously rearming since the Munich Agreent! If we give them a pretext for war when they are in the midst of war preparations, we are finished.”
Before I knew it, everyone's eyes were on us.
“Enthroning His Majesty the Emperor right now will not bring us the support of the Wehrmacht! They will ultimately pledge their loyalty to the side that has the people's support! Our forces are smaller than the Nazis', and the more ti we drag on, the more disadvantaged we beco!”
Right now, it may seem as though we've pacified western Germany in an instant with a perfect surprise attack based on Manstein's well-laid plan.
But our forces are small.
The troops deployed to the Siegfried Line are not even a quarter, let alone half, of the forces prepared for the invasion of Poland.
We have citizen volunteers, but their numbers are not yet large as we haven't fully turned public opinion.
If they recover from the shock of the surprise attack and the Wehrmacht sides with them, it's over for us.
“On the other hand, if we put forth the cause of ousting the dictatorship and re-establishing democracy in Germany, Britain and France cannot intervene in our civil war! In fact, we could even receive support from them and turn the civil war in our favor.”
The Kordt brothers are in France and Britain for that very purpose, after prior consultation with myself and other mbers of the pro-democracy faction.
For politicians in democratic countries facing elections, what could be a greater campaign point than claiming their support eliminated the threat of war and turned Germany into a normal nation?
“Then we might even be able to get them to recognize the revival of the throne in Germany! The cause of restoring the monarchy and rebuilding democracy are not mutually exclusive at all…”
“Urgent news!”
As I was passionately speaking, a staff officer who had received a telegram ran over.
“What is it?”
“Count Blunthal has reportedly succeeded in assassinating Hitler!”
“Ooooh…!”
The operation was launched at dawn, but there had been no news until now, and the Nazi broadcasts only ntioned that the Führer had been attacked. Now, finally, a report ca in.
And this news completely wiped what I had so earnestly argued from the minds of the high command and began to instill in them a boundless optimism.
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