Die Anderen, a napola/before the fall fanfic

A/N: This is one way it could've happened. The italicized quote is from the end of the movie, translated from the original German.

On July 20th, 1944, Adolf Hitler's thousand-year Reich had less than one year to live. As it became increasingly clear that Germany could not win the war, Adolf Hitler abandoned his people, withdrawing into his own world. Listening only to his own ranting speeches and those few who would similarly ignore the facts and say what he wanted to hear, Hitler ordered that literally any means necessary be used to ensure the final victory. The discipline of the Wehrmacht held, and Germany's soldiers, sailors, and airmen were sacrificed in steadily-rising numbers in the name of the thousand-year Reich. But as more trained soldiers and veterans fell, and the number of available men fit for military service diminished, Berlin looked for more recruits, and found them in the ranks of Germany's youth.

All over Germany, boys as young as ten were called into service with the Hitler Youth, the Army, the Waffen-SS, and that last-ditch attempt at scraping up the last of Germany's fighting manpower, the Volkssturm. Manning 88mm anti-aircraft guns, carrying Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons and charging into battle against trained soldiers with nothing more than a Mauser 98k and a handful of ammunition, these boys were doomed to failure from the beginning. Inadequate training and equipment could not excuse the strategic and tactical failures of Adolf Hitler and the High Command of the Wehrmacht. Germany's child soldiers were thrown into battle by the thousands, and in the thousands they died. Many boys, believing completely in their Führer after an entire childhood soaked in Nazi propaganda, willingly gave up their lives in clumsy ambushes and assaults against overwhelming numbers of Allied and Soviet soldiers and armor.

Among these thousands of child soldiers were the former students of the NaPola schools, the military academies that held the sons and future heirs of the National Socialist elite. When it was obvious that the war was lost, the NaPola schools were closed and their cadets conscripted into military service.

"Blinded by instructed fanaticism and insufficiently armed, they still offered bitter resistance in many battles. Half of them died."

The Anstaltsleiter, too old to be an effective soldier, continued to work for the Reich Ministry of Education until the end of the war. A fanatical Nazi, the Anstaltsleieter believed completely in the future Hitler had promised Germany, right up to the very end. Unwilling to surrender to the Allies, he committed suicide on May 8, 1945, the day of Nazi Germany's capitulation.

Justus von Jaucher served as a Luftwaffe anti-aircraft gunner for two years, transferring to a Waffen-SS AA battalion in late 1944. He fought in the Ardenne Offensive from December 1944 to the first days of 1945, when he was wounded in action and captured by the Americans when the field hospital he was in was overrun.

Released from a POW camp two years later, Justus returned to Dresden, only to find the home he thought he was returning to no longer existed. Destroyed in the firestorms of the Royal Air Force raid that reduced the historic city to ruins, the Von Jaucher house was gone; nothing but ashes remained. Justus never learned what had become of his family.

When Allenstein was closed, Christoph Schneider joined the Waffen-SS, being assigned to the 17th-SS Panzergrenadier Division "Götz von Berlichingen". He gained basic NCO rank quickly, volunteering for the additional responsibility of leading one of the Panzerfaust anti-tank infantry teams. He survived multiple engagements on the Western Front while serving with the 17th and was transferred to Berlin, promoted to Untersturmführer and made the leader of an entire platoon of boys, only half of whom had any training at all on their weapons. During the last desperate days of the Battle of Berlin, Christoph Schneider was nominated three times for the Iron Cross, First Class for acts of distinguished conduct, leadership and bravery on the battlefield.

When his unit ran out of ammunition after three days of non-stop fighting against the Soviets, Christoph Schneider released his boys to return to their families. He was arrested half an hour later by an SS military police patrol, while attempting to escape the encircled city himself.

Christoph Schneider was summarily shot for desertion and cowardice in the presence of the enemy.

When Allenstein was closed, the Sportlehrer was conscripted into service with the German Army. He proved an inept and cowardly soldier, constantly shirking duties and eventually deserting in the middle of a chaotic retreat. He was caught by a British Army reconnaissance platoon while attempting to flee to Switzerland with a forged passport and ID papers. His real identity was later discovered, and he ultimately served five years in prison. The Sportlehrer moved to Stuttgart and obtained a job as an athletics instructor at a school there, unaware that Siegfried Gladen's family was from Stuttgart. Having lied to the school headmaster in Stuttgart about his occupation during the war, the Sportlehrer was fired when Siegfried Gladen's mother recognized him and told the headmaster who he was.

Heinrich Stein abandoned his post as Gauleiter abruptly in 1945, when the Soviets entered the region he was responsible for governing. His disappearance did not go unnoticed; all Gauleiters were personally appointed by order of Adolf Hitler, and the Führer himself ordered Heinrich Stein's arrest when he found out the man was attempting to flee.

Hunted by every policeman in Germany, Heinrich Stein and his wife were caught close to the French border and arrested. By mere luck more than anything else, the increasingly-disorganized state of Nazi Germany by 1945 meant that the Steins stayed in prison until the end of the war, rather than being executed for treason as Hitler had ordered. This also meant that Heinrich Stein fell from the hands of one captor straight into the grip of another.

At Nuremberg, among the thousands of pages of evidence against the former Gauleiter, Heinrich Stein's own son's testimony proved the most damning. Unknown to him, Heinrich Stein's wife had kept both of her son's essays, and in the aftermath of the war and the confiscation of the Stein family's estate the essays were found in the house. The essays Albrecht wrote both specifically named his father as the one who ordered that some forty-five Soviet POW's be executed in the woods near Allenstein, and that Heinrich Stein had used cadets from the school to assist in carrying this order out. Heinrich Stein was found guilty of knowingly aiding and abetting the criminal nature and acts of the Nazi Party, ordering the execution of prisoners in clear violation of the laws of war, and of crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to death and hanged in 1946.

Tjaden left Allenstein early, volunteering for service in the Luftwaffe as a member of the elite Fallschirmjäger in March 1944. Believing his chances of surviving military service were better if he volunteered, Tjaden committed himself and was able to pass parachute infantry training, earning his Fallschirmjäger Badge and becoming a full member of the 6th Fallschirmjäger Regiment under Oberst Friedrich August Freiherr von der Heydte.

During the field training and preparations for the coming Allied invasion of France, Tjaden proved himself and was promoted to Stabsgefreiter on May 31st, 1944. He was well-liked by the other teenage boys who had volunteered as new recruits with the 6th FJR, and earned the respect of the veterans who lead the regiment.

Brave and a capable paratrooper for his age, Tjaden did well during the opening skirmishes on the night of June 6th, and in the Battle of Carentan that followed. He was killed during the Battle of Bloody Gulch on June 13th, 1944, participating in an infantry assault on the defensive lines of Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division.

Heinrich Vogler remained at Allenstein as a boxing trainer until the school was closed in January of 1945. He was conscripted into the Volkssturm and spent the last days of the war training teams of boys to fight with the Panzerfaust rocket-propelled anti-tank weapon. When Berlin was overrun, he escaped to the west and surrendered to a Canadian patrol. When his role as a NaPola school instructor was discovered, he was arrested and sent to Nuremberg to go on trial.

Heinrich Vogler served four years in prison before being paroled and released in 1949.

Wilhelm "Hefe" was conscripted into the Waffen-SS, joining the 17th-SS Panzergrenadier Division alongside Christoph Schneider, and reluctantly participated in several battles and skirmishes against Allied armor and infantry. When his unit ran out of Panzerfausts and shells for its two 7.5cm PaK-40 anti-tank guns, he deserted, traveling only at night as he headed home. He was nearly captured by military police patrols several times, but was able to evade capture and made it home to Bad Reichenall. His father, embittered towards the Nazis since his abrupt dismissal as head of catering at Allenstein, welcomed his son home and ensured that Wilhelm was never conscripted a second time.

After the war, "Hefe" took up his father's trade as a specialist of the culinary arts, and became a baker. He resumed his schooling in Bad Reichenall, and almost never spoke of Allenstein. He never saw any of his old roommates again. Years after the end of the war, Wilhelm "Hefe" engraved each of their names on the first stone laid in the foundation on the day he opened his own bakery.