IG Farben HQ
Prachtalle 157, Germania
Germany“… and while other brother-companies in the industrial sector, such as there are, Mercedes-Benz… Fokker… Messerschmitt… Have all managed to balance lower household income with lower labour costs and subsequent lower material cost, our IG Farben production process remains reliant on skilled labour, which remains…”Maximilian Baumann, Max for friends, had not the faintest clue why every department head had to sit in on these monthly debriefs of IG CEO Hermann Schmitz. He duly understood why Heinrich Oster, head of sales, would be there. Walter Dürrfeld, head of finance, was also expected, although the slim bean-counter was closer to Schmitz than his shadow, and there was no company-related thought Dürrfeld could have that was not immediately transplanted into a memo on Schmitz’ desk. Georg von Schnitzler, head of the chemical department, and Max exchanged looks of exasperation as, for the first time in twelve that year, Dürrfeld explained why income figures were increasingly lacklustre. Hermann Schmitz, his eyes hidden behind the silver reflection in his spectacles, simply nodded, looking down at a folder in front of him.
From the large, floor-high window in Schmitz’ office, a wandering mind could overlook the whole of central Berlin; the Prachtallee stretching from Hitler’s Arch to the Volkshalle, its dome still covered in scaffolding. Even with building materials in Sweden being dug out by slave labour, the megalomaniacal building project strained believability. Behind the Volkshalle, stretching to the Nordbahnhof was the large reflection pool that Berlin would flock to on hot days. At the moment, it was frozen over, allowing for ice skating in view of the centres of power.
The Prachtallee itself, where the IG Farben headquarters was located, played host to a number of opulent company headquarters. Those who had had the foresight in 1938-39 to reserve a plot of land with Speer’s office (and thereby shoulder a large part of the construction cost of the Allee), like IG, Volkswagen and Krupp, now enjoyed the splendour of being one of the Reich’s most prestigious companies, their very facades among the Siegesstrasse inviting the protections of gauleiter and administrators all across the Reich. Even abroad, their position was recognised, simply because their headquarters was in view every time the Wehrmacht held a victory parade.
“If we want to keep revenue up with demands of the Spende, then acquiring new captive markets should be a priority. The conquests of the Endsieg have proven vast, but not limitless” Dürrfeld continued. Again, Von Schnitzler’s eyes and Max’ met across the table. The unspoken truth was that the Adolf Hitler-Spende, the German people’s token of gratitude towards the Führer, had turned into a subscription to his audiences. It had also turned into Martin Bormanns personal war chest, which had seemingly increased in unison with the Führer’s ailing health.
“I will see if I can ask Göring to pull some strings… When he gets back from his hunting estate”
A light chuckle went through the room, and the secretary in the back of the room automatically stopped typing for a moment. Jokes at the expense of the cabinet were common, but a good secretary never put them down in writing; and if they did, only in their own persona blackmail folders. This one seemed loyal enough, though, and even then Max was happy that he, as head of the company archives, had very little to add to this conversation. Instead, Max could take his time to observe the palace Speer had built Göring, which the Reichsmarshal almost never visited: his Air Ministry. The enormous structure dwarfed the former Reich chancery, which had since then been replaced in order not to be outdone by Göring. The Air Ministry held Göring’s personal lodgings, his personal offices, as well as his administrative staff and the staff of the Air Ministry itself. The building was even bigger than the opposing headquarters of the Luftwaffe, the Kriegsmarine and the Wehrmacht.
After three gruelling hours of the same updates they had received mid-December, the whole council stood up to leave, neither Georg von Schnitzler nor Maximilian having spoken a word after entering. Some papers were shuffled, the secretary typed out the last of his remarks, then combined the notes into his briefcase. The only one remaining seated was Hermann Schmitz, his head supported by his right hand, staring out towards the Sudbahnhof. His eyes were still obscured by the silver reflection in his small spectacles.
Just before Max could leave the room, Schmitz gestured for him to wait.
“Max, a word, if you will?”
Maximilian sighed and came back into the room. Usually, the CEO was looking for a particular document he couldn’t find, and rather than tasking one of his lower minions to dig it up, he asked the archive director to discover it for him. This time, however, it was something else entirely.
“My office…” Schmitz began slowly, removing his spectacles to reveal his tired and haggard face.
“… has received a written request by Amt 4 for documents pertaining to your history at our company”
Max swallowed. Amt 4 of the Reich Main Security Office was better known as the Geheime Staatspolizei, or Gestapo. Requests from them were never welcome.
“Wh… why would they want that?” Max asked in return. From one of the folders, a black one with white gothic lettering, Schmitz procured a written note in the trademark grey paper used by the RSHA.
“Apparently… You once wrote an article on the importance of labour protections, for a Bolshevik publication. Is that true?”
There was a silence while Max was trying to judge whether Schmitz was making a joke or not. Then, his mind raced, barrelling through his own personal history, seeing if somewhere, somehow, he slipped up. He couldn’t think of anything; he imagined he would have remembered writing something so stupid while under Nazi scrutiny. He shook his head.
“Can’t say I have” he answered. “Can I go?”
That last part left his mouth a little too quick, he imagined. Schmitz looked down at the folder again.
“Does the name ‘Panopticon’ mean anything to you?” Schmitz continued. Then, it clicked.
“My faculty newspaper? My god, that was ages ago” Max answered with a hint of relief in his voice.
“1931, if this document is to be believed” Schmitz said with a grim expression that did not put Max at ease. Max shook his head.
“No, you don’t understand, Hermann.” Max interjected. “Panopticon was a student newspaper. I probably wrote an article there somewhere about student jobs or something. It certainly wasn’t a Bolshevik paper. Social-democrat at best”
“Is that a distinction you want to make to Amt 4?” Schmitz answered gravely. “As far as they are concerned, you were writing Judeo-Bolshevik drivel while they were out in the streets fighting the real fight”
“That’s ridiculous” Max cried out, almost jumping out of his chair in excitement. “They might as well go after everyone who was ever a union member, or who studied economics, or…” he tried, but Schmitz shook his head and gestured for him to calm down.
“I’m sorry, friend” he said, with just a hint of real regret seeping through is cracked voice.
“Himmler is pulling all the cords he can. I believe he is trying to get one-up on Göring, get blackmail material on the biggest companies. Having you here would only be a liability”
“Only a liability? I work your fucking archive, Hermann! What am I going to do?!?”
“Do you think the Gest… You think Amt 4 cares?” Schmitz bit back, almost forgetting the taboo of the name. “It’s a risk I cannot take. And that’s final”
A silence drifted through the room like noxious smoke. Max felt his heart pumping, but his mind, racing as it was to come up with some witty remark, came up empty. Against the fear of the Gestapo, there was little he could do. In a sense, he was right; when Hitler would inevitably bite the dust, the proud Göring would be using his leverage against Speer. Himmler had to supplant that in order to achieve power parity. And the only way for IG Farben to remain ‘free’ was to cut the ballast while it could.
“I imagine my stuff is already packed” Max admitted, slowly rising from his chair.
“I’m terribly sorry” Schmitz said, but Max shook his head.
“You will be, Hermann… You will be” he added, dragging himself towards the office door.
“When the Old Man kicks the bucket, just how much do you think the Gestapo is going to care about evidence? Just as much as they care about the distinction between social democrats and communist, I think”
A layer of snow covered the Prachtallee; Max popped the collar of his coat in order to defend against the biting, icy winds. It was a short walk from there to the Sudbahnhof, past the Messerschmitt HQ and the enormous Triumphal Arch, which could have fit the French Arc de Triomphe snuggly under itself. At the monument, he waited for a moment, inspecting the 1,8 million names of German soldiers that had been etched into its marble. His name brushed by the name Ernst Baumann, and he sighed, before continuing towards the Sudbahnhof. The train to Lichterfelde was waiting for him, and Max let it carry him homewards. Out of the window he could still see the enormous dome in the distance, the Arch on the other side, both framing the dwarfed IG Farben headquarters, to which he would now never return.
“I need to leave” he whispered to himself, as he began thinking about a future that no-one else in Germany, aside from the most powerful men in Berlin, were at freedom to ponder.
The death of Hitler.
Annual Congress of the Federative Union of Defence Industry Workers
Tankograd, Chelyabinsk
The Commonwealth Professor Mikhaylov eyes wondered through the large congress hall as he spoke to the delegated there assembled, as they had been trained to do. Speaking at length on matters of military theory and geopolitics, he had to use every trick in the book in order to keep his audience engaged. While some were dozing off and otherwise distracted, enough faces were still staring back at him intently, some even with notebooks in order to quickly scribble down their thoughts.
“No man lives forever, and certainly not mister Hitler” he said in a mocking tone, accepted by jeers and applause from the audience, as well as some audible ‘boos’. “And Germany is a country, like a company, built around the will of one man and his ‘shareholders’. When he dies, his lackeys will scramble in order to become the new CEO of the fascist corporation”
The board of the Federative Union of Defence Industry Workers, a large collaborative effort between various different defence industries, had invited professor Mikhaylov to speak on geopolitics, not for their enjoyment, but as part of the five-year strategic planning of their production. Knowing how they had to work in the next five years depended on knowing where the threats would come from, and in all the Commonwealth, professor Mikhaylov knew best. His theory on Russian unification was hailed by peers as a formative work in the field, and while many of his colleagues disagreed with him, even the staunchest opponents had to step up their game in order to compete with Mikhaylov.
“The nature of fascistic power means that Germany, built upon a crumbling foundation of slavery and economic exploitation in order to placate the politics of the owning class, is headed towards a perfect storm: an economic collapse as well as a political collapse. Germany, now the strongest power in Europe, perhaps the world, will collapse in on itself almost overnight. In its shadow stand a hundred million slaves ready to overthrow their oppressor, if we give them but the means”
The size of the meeting hall mattered very little: even on the third balcony, towering above the others in a horseshoe shape just below the enormous dome, people did not have to strain to hear him. It had been designed for acoustics by noted architect Praskoviya Aleksandrova, who had also designed the Workers’ Concert Building in Sverdlovsk. The walls were decorated with elaborate reliefs of great battles in working class history, including the battle of the Golden Spurs, the Spartacist revolt and the Battle of Kronstadt. The two balconies were held up by pillars shaped to look like large artillery muzzles, and tattered Nazi banners captured during the battle of Volgograd hung from the ceiling. The latter actually somewhat diminished the acoustics of the hall, but it had been requested by the Federative Union that they be placed there, and Aleksandrova had compensated in the rest of her design.
“However, it would be a mistake to focus on the Caucasus, Moscow and the Ukraine without considering the threat from Archangel; there too a rump state resides that lives off the slavery of the working class. While the collapse of Germany would wound them too, it would be a mistake to discount their threat. Leaving them in the back could lead to a counter-attack while our troops are engaged in Ukraine. But for the sake of morality too; we cannot take the fight into Europe without liberating this side of the Urals first. Our position then would allow is free access into the Baltics, from where it is possible to liberate our comrades in captive Finland and Sweden. My proposition, therefore, it to prepare arms and munitions for a conflict in Russia first, before considering the push towards Moscow. I thank you for your attention”
Mikhaylov gratefully accepted the applause the workers’ delegates offered to him. He knew the debate was far from over; there were those who wanted to consolidate control of Moscow first, and then use the massive proletarian population there to secure all other flanks. A domino theory, wherein if a world city like Moscow would fall to the anarcho-syndicalist cause, other major cities in the world would shudder. It made sense, of course, but required on a lot of things going right; if anything, Mikhaylov’s theory was more careful. But it was born out of hatred too; he hated the Russian collaborators, who had tasted working class freedom, more than the captive Nazis who had only known bourgeois democracy and imperial authoritarianism. Then again, how long had the worker’s liberation of Russia actually lasted?
“Thank you, professor Mikhaylov” said the chairwoman of the Federative Union, from her seated position next to the speaking pedestal.
“You posit interesting views, and the board will take it under advisement. Now, for the next order of business…”
Mikhaylov, not having any other plans that evening, listened to the rest of that evening’s program from one of the visitor seats on the first balcony. A lot of matters were discussed which he had no clue about; from precise tooling to matters of logistics, even to the tiniest minutiae of screw thread standardisation and other interoperable parts. A few votes were held, including a few additions to safety standards in the industry. Firearms now had to be subjected to reasonable forces akin to being thrown on the ground without going off, for instance, a change which Mikhaylov thought reasonable. The Congress also spoke out against the mass adoption of a pistol that could fire multiple calibres, but decided not to adopt a resolution condemning the production, since it was considered that the production of such a firearm might lead to the furthering of knowledge. The small rural weapon shop that had brought forward their design was clearly disappointed, but happy that they had not been denounced. Which was mostly for appearance, anyway, since the Federative Union had no way to actually ban the manufacture of arms, though it would have been difficult to get materials had the Congress adopted their denunciation.
Late that evening, Mikhaylov took the streetcar back to the Chelyabinsk central station, which had recently been refurbished in a socialist style. It was now more than a station; it now resembled more of a forum, with a central hall that had the trappings of a square, small shops around it, and a park in front of its entrance. Large posters hung from the three story high façade; one communist, thanking the builders of Chelyabinsk for giving the city such a lovely station three weeks ahead of schedule, and another denouncing the vile Hitlerites on the other side of the Volga: a poster where Goebbels, Göring, Himmler and Speer were all tumbling over one another, with Martin Bormann taking bets.
“The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese” read the text under the poster. A bit wordy, Mikhaylov thought, but it got the point across. Entering the station so late at night, most of the shops had already closed. Only a few people could be found in the central hall; a few teenage lovers, some old people feeding the indoor pigeons, and one drunk apparently trying to chat up a lamppost. On his way to the platform that would take him back to Sverdlovsk, he came across a man in the tell-tale dress of a conductor, who was handing out pamphlets with a broad grin on his face.
“Comrade!” he exclaimed as Mikhaylov walked by. “Are you headed in the direction of Sverdlovsk?”
“As a matter of fact, I am” Mikhaylov answered, intrigued by the man’s exuberant atmosphere.
“Well, then you are in luck!” the man said in turn, handing over one of the pamphlets. It had a socialist realist picture of a train on it, with the name ‘Rosa Luxemburg’ under it. On top, the paper said ‘Maiden voyage’.
“My comrades and I have finally acquired a train for our very own, comrade, and as is tradition within the Train Workers’ Union, we would like to invite you on her maiden voyage. Food and drink will be supplied, of course, and there will be an atmosphere of merriment and contentment!”
Mikhaylov laughed and looked at his watch. It was a bit late, but he had no appointments the next day until around noon, so he would have time to recuperate in the morning. And with this man’s enthusiasm, there was little doubt it would at least be a more entertaining trip. More entertaining, that was, than the report on Finnoscandian liberation movements he was planning on reading on his way back. Thus, he nodded, and gladly took the man up on the offer.
Half an hour later, the steam engine of the train Rosa Luxemburg roared to life, and its smokestack began bellowing thick black fumes. The wheels ground against the track, and with a loud ‘hurrah’ from its semi-inebriated occupants, the locomotive pulled the carriages forward, slowly but surely, literally, picking up steam.
As the train eased itself away from the platform into the streetlight-lit night, the stars shining brightly overhead, one of the train mechanics raised a glass of vodka and began to hum a slow tune that left all the other occupants silent. Mikhaylov looked at them; they were men and women, factory workers and clerks, soldiers, in suits and working clothing. Young couples and aged spinsters, a veteran of the Great War without legs, a lonely women staring out into the inky dark of night. All were silent, but one by one they joined in the humming of the well-known song.
“Ech…e…lon… by… ech…e…lon”“Ech…e…lon… by… ech…e…lon”
“The… road… road… is… wide”
Slowly picking up the pace as the train did, the chugging of the engines and the rattle of the carriages acting like a conductor and deciding the rhythm of the song; ever louder, ever faster.
“The commander… ordered… That is that!”
One of the factory workers, still dressed in his blue overalls and face smudged by coal, stood up, and proved that he was a tenor as well as a worker; his deep voice rang louder and purer than any of the others, and his flourished of voice made the exaltation ever-greater.
“Days and nights we will fight! Peaks with peaks crossing, and don’t wash it off with the rains! And not dry by the winds!”
“The blood of workers and peasants! And don’t wash it off with the rain, and don’t dry by the wind”
“The blood of workers and peasants! The commander ordered, that is that!”
Mikhaylov raised his glass of vodka and, in the heat of the moment, shouted in a belligerent tone:
“Comrades! Today, we free ourselves, tomorrow we free Moscow, after that Berlin, until we are all the way in New York!”
“Ura!” replied all the cabin’s occupants, downing their shots of vodka, as the rambunctious train slid into the dark, star-lit night; one more cog in the machine that would, one day, free the world.
It was hoped.