AYKRR Chapter 11

For The Future of Germania

21st August 1942,

Diamantring Restaurant, East Berun

Manfred Schneider, a long-time Reichstag seat holder of the GWP, entered the private dining room from the restaurant's upstairs hallway. Booking a private room at an upscale restaurant like this was expensive, but their highly secured, soundproof rooms were a must-have for the discussion he was having today.

Peering into the room, he saw three men and two women inside, already seated at the large dining table. There was no food served, but there were multiple bottles of champagne and scotch, along with glasses. Taking the last seat left, he settled himself in nicely, his back thanking him for the soft cushions. He poured himself a nice glass of wine and looked around the room curiously.

There were no windows; he made sure to book one without any. Annoyingly, the room was somewhat asymmetrical, as he noticed that the chandelier above was not central, but a metre offset to the left. Had the eastern portion of the room been a metre longer, the chandelier would have been in the centre.

Shaking his head from being distracted by tangential thoughts, Manfred examined everyone in the room. He was not the only seat holder at the Reichstag here. Three of the four other men in the room were also members of the Reichstag and part of the GWP like him. The last man was Gunther Wagner, the Chairman of Democratic Socialist Party, perhaps the only left-leaning party in Germania with any considerable number of seats at twenty seats total.

One of the two women was Agatha Klein, an editor at the Berun Times. The last person in the room was Alice Kraus, a nouveau-riche who gained her wealth through marrying an oil tycoon who died last year. She was the one who had paid for this room.

Manfred sighed ruefully. The eight of them in this room were likely the only domestic democratic resistance to Chancellor Degurechaff left. Before, there had been dozens of them, a political and economic bloc powerful enough to hopefully rein in Degurechaff. But no one could have expected the Imperial Party to rear its head and rip out the democratic foundations of Germania.

It wasn't enough that the majority of his colleagues had lost their seats, many of them had scandals or crimes published that they were guilty of. Not anything groundbreaking, like the embezzlement of the treasury or treason, but enough to make them resign, retire, or never come back into the public eye. And the worst part was that none of those published stories were fabricated.

Someone was watching them; he was sure of it. The only reason why he had not been one of the shamed was because he was not a man of vices.

"Ladies and gentlemen." Wagner said. "I'm afraid that we are the only ones left who have both the will and the capability to stop Degurechaff's ambition for the throne. Noah Hass's group has declared they want no part in it anymore."

"Cowards. And right after he declared that he won't stop until someone else is in the Chancellor's seat. Now it's all up to us to save Germanian democracy from Degurechaff." Gunther Wagner bristled.

"We should have known that the Imperial Party was just an extension of her will sooner." Manfred mumbled. "Then we could have done something before it was too late." He sampled a bit of his wine.

One of his fellow GWP members, Henry Abel, snarled. "We were tricked by Degurechaff's false charm and promises. We all really thought she genuinely was curbing her own power when she advocated for an earlier Presidential election. Little did we know that she was simply planning on giving the position to her own lackey all along."

"Not quite a lackey." Frau Klaus scoffed. "Have you seen how close Ernst and Degurechaff have been lately? He's always by her side while she's lecturing him about something. He's either her other lover or her political apprentice, I tell you."

All of them have heard of the rumours that Degurechaff and Serebryakov were lovers, which had been circulating for the past couple months. There was astonishment and scandalous outrage of course, but that had taken a backseat to the election itself. So, none of them raised a peep about it, so that Degurechaff's voter base would not be affected. Now they all regret it.

The last GWP member in the room, Friedrick Adler, downed a glass of scotch and rubbed his beard in contemplation. "I doubt that Degurechaff is trying to fill the top political offices with her paramours, that's just outlandish. It's more likely that Ernst is someone she's been nurturing for a while, even before his debut in politics. It would make sense too. They both share a similar military record. His political speeches definitely take inspiration from Degurechaff. I've even heard rumours from one of my friends in the mail department that Degurechaff sent the former Kaiser a letter some time ago."

Agatha Klein, who had been quiet all this time, pitched in. "The Berun Times have been hiring more secretaries lately. It's clear that the press is completely compromised. Nobody dares write a story about Degurechaff that doesn't make her sound like the second coming of Jesus. Just last week, a journalist discovered that Degurechaff personally visited the Imperial Party's headquarters twice, both in the same disguise. On the second time, she was in a private room with the then Chairman Ernst for over twenty minutes and no one knew what they did in there! It was scandalous and revealed Degurechaff's favouritism for the Imperial Party. He tried to get the story published. The next day, he was fired. I managed to buy the story from him before he could burn it. But I'm only going to publish it when I have an opportunity to get out of the country first."

"If you need the funds to get out of Germania, I can provide it to you." Alice Klaus said, as she pulled out a thick stack of marks and handed it to Agatha Klein, who took it.

"Just make sure that story is published. The whole world needs to know of Degurechaff's corruption." Manfred said.

"I will. Thank you Alice, I plan to leave tomorrow morning. I'll hand the story to every Francois news publisher." Agatha Klein said, nodding gratefully to the other woman.

"I'm afraid none of you are going anywhere." A dangerously sweet woman's voice rang out in the room. A voice that belonged to no one else in that room. But it was a voice that many of them recognised. As if a viper had injected its venom into their hearts, their faces started to blanch, their knees wobble and their eyes dilated in terror.

The eastern wall suddenly dissolved, revealing itself to be an illusion. It revealed the true eastern wall, which was set a metre behind the false wall. Standing in the space hidden by the illusion was a brunette woman with shoulder length hair, a chilling smile present on her face. Flanking her were two tall ZEZP officers, decked in black body armour and gas masks that obscured their faces. Both of them carried a Lmg-40 each.

"What an enlightening discussion about our great Chancellor." Head of the BND, Elya Muller said, her smile narrowing dangerously. "I'm sure that she'll be just delighted to hear of your sedition behind her back."

Her icy gaze fell upon them like a blizzard, and they flinched back as if struck.

"We're preserving the democratic integrity of this nation!" With courage that she never knew she had; Agatha Klein was the first to speak back. Muller focused her full glare at her and the woman shrunk back into her seat like a wilted flower.

Manfred was not brave enough to yell at the perhaps the most dangerous woman in Germania, but he knew he had to run. Kicking back his chair, he leapt out of his seat with a level of agility only given to those running away from a predator. He rushed to the door, a fleeting glance back telling him that Frau Muller had not moved from her position, nor had the ZEZP officers. Manfred flung the door inwards and barrelled his way out into the hallway. Or rather he tried to.

As he threw his body out, he collided with a taller, more muscular man standing behind the door. To Manfred, it felt like hitting a brick wall. He crumpled back into the room, his nose squirting blood. Meanwhile, the man was completely unphased, as if a fly flew into him instead.

"Get out of my way, you imbecile! Do you know who I am!?" Manfred yelled in outrage; his eyes tightly shut in pain and clutching his nose. He couldn't believe this dummkopf had cost him his escape from certain death or imprisonment!

"I'm not going anywhere." Said a calm, deep voice, laced with dangerous intent. Manfred froze, and he opened his eyes. He recognised that voice.

Standing in the doorway was President Ludwig Ernst. And he was looking down at him like a bug. A very squishable one. "Go back to your seat, would you?" The President ordered. With the fear of God put into him, Manfred scrambled back to his seat like a chastised child. Ernst walked in assuredly as six more ZEZP officers poured in after him. He nodded in friendly greeting at Frau Muller, before closing the door and casting a privacy spell.

"Ms. Muller, what did these ladies and gentlemen talk about?" President Ernst said in a faux-friendly voice.

"These traitors planned to publish that the great Chancellor visited the Imperial Party headquarters, and the latter visit was spent in total privacy with you. Quite a suggestive article questioning both the Chancellor's moral and bodily integrity."

"It's not illegal to…" Agatha started.

"Yet you were going to publish it to foreign newspapers. A completely false story, trying to degrade the reputation of our great leader. That's libel, you know? Plus, who knows what the Francois secret intelligence agency could do with that information." Frau Muller said.

"We're doing this for the good of the nation! As competent of a leader Degurechaff is, she cannot be allowed to be a tyrant!" Henry Abel shouted, having found his courage.

"So, who are you going to replace her with?" President Ernst asked. "Who can fend against the jealous Francois, guard against perfidious Albion, scam the greedy Americans, subdue the bloodthirsty Rus, befriend distant Akitsushima, keep an eye on the global threat of communism, all while trying to keep OZEV united?"

President Ernst stayed quiet for them to answer his question. After half a minute. None of them spoke. And it was true. After six years of following Degurechaff's lead and having utmost confidence in her competence, the Reichstag had not passed a single bill that wasn't proposed by the Chancellor in over half a decade. Every legislator in the Reichstag had grown fat and lazy under Degurechaff's secured shade, especially the ones in the GWP. There was no one that was close to her acuity or foresight. Furthermore, the second largest party in the nation was firmly her supporter.

"Should your activities ever succeed in removing the Chancellor from power, what then? Who would take up the post? Would you be satisfied with seeing our alliances torn to shreds, our enemies nipping at our heels?" President Ernst continued.

"Under Germanian law, you are all under arrest for the crime of conspiracy to libel and seditious conspiracy. That's over fifteen years in prison if I'm correct. Officers, take them away." Muller spoke. Her words fell on them like Damocles' sword.

The ZEZP officers moved to handcuff Manfred and his allies. He started begging for mercy as they pulled him out of his seat, regardless of the lack of dignity. "Please, have mercy, we'll do anything."

"Halt." President Ernst said. The ZEZP officers stopped escorting him and his associates out of the room. "You said you would do anything?" He turned to look at them with conniving cobalt-blue eyes.

All of them nodded. Some enthusiastically, some glumly. If they were imprisoned, it would be at least fifteen years until they would be freed, assuming they didn't die from an unforeseen accident while in prison.

"Alright then, I'll give you a second chance and consider this to be a lapse in judgment by you fine people. A misunderstanding, if you will." President Ernst said, arms folded behind his back. "As long as you fine ladies and gentlemen assist me with a few things." His voice was deliberately gentle, luring them into a false sense of security.

"W-What is it that you want?" Wagner asked.

"I simply need you to fulfill these tasks." President Ernst spoke, before launching into an explanation.

"You all know what the Chancellor's goal is. She wants to become Kaiserin. While she can bypass the Reichstag by passing a public referendum to restore the monarchy, doing so would cause political upheaval and perhaps a political resistance movement. That's not an outcome I want. So, I want the monarchy restoration bill to pass both the Reichstag and the referendum vote, even if passing both votes is redundant. That will ensure foreign countries cannot do anything about it nor cry tyranny."

"As such," the President pointed at the four Reichstag politicians. "When the time comes, you four will vote for that bill to pass. And before that bill comes, I want you to persuade every single one of your associates to support monarchism. Understood?"

Wagner looked like he wanted to protest, but the sound of the Head of the BND's heels clicking behind him silenced it. Manfred wanted to refuse too. He would be betraying his principle of democracy. But his self-preservation won out in the end.

"You know the consequences if you refuse." Elya Muller whispered behind Wagner's ear, and Manfred felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, despite not being the target of her threat.

All four of them nodded in submission. President Ernst smiled, satisfied.

"As for you two ladies." He turned to the women, speaking in a charming voice. "Frau Klein, if you would please, hand me the manuscript for that article about the Chancellor."

Agatha Klein immediately did as he asked, her face still pale.

"And you did not make any additional copies?" Frau Muller asked, now directly behind her with one hand on her spine. "I can tell by your heartbeat if you lie."

"That's the only copy." Tears were threatening to flow from the corners of Frau Klein's eyes. Frau Muller nodded at President Ernst in confirmation.

"Thank you, Frau Klein. Your contribution to the nation is greatly appreciated." President Ernst gave Elya Muller the manuscript and she burned it into ash with a fire spell. Manfred wondered if that were to be his fate had he refused.

"As for you, Frau Klaus." President Ernst looked at the last person in their party. "You will declare your support for the Imperial Party. For any businesses that you own, I want you to encourage your workers to embrace a tacit support for the monarchy. Nothing too outrageous, of course, just check into the Imperial Party's headquarters tomorrow and ask my friend Walther von Schiel for a few posters."

Alice Klaus nodded too. Manfred noticed that not a single one of them had even dared speak a word.

"Now then, ladies and gentlemen." President Ernst clapped, startling them. "You may leave."

The six of them started shuffling out of the room. Despite not having lost anything physical, they all felt a loss of their integrity. Just before Manfred left the room as the last of their former resistance group, a voice called out to him.

"Hold on a moment, Herr Schneider." Frau Muller's voice came from behind him. Manfred froze in the doorway, his heart leaping to his throat. Surely they didn't call him back specifically just to torture him for information right? He slowly but surely turned around, fear casted on his face as if he was about to face the Devil.

"You haven't finished your wine." She gestured at his half-empty glass of wine.

"I-I think I'm quitting a-alcohol from now on." He stuttered, then leaving the room like the Grim Reaper was after his soul.

Ludwig watched the last of the seditionists flee the private room like scurrying trench rats. The eight ZEZP officers accompanying them filed out of the room to escort those rats back home safely. But unlike trench rats who bite soldiers, these rats gnaw upon the nation. He turned his attention to the admittedly very attractive Head of the BND, Elya Muller.

When he was approached by her to be delivered the orphan list he requested, he came up with a plan for cooperation between them to flush out all democratic strongholds in the country. She would gather intel on suspicious persons, while he would bring in the hammer with the ZEZP mage officers at his disposal.

"How did I do?" He asked.

"You're a natural, honestly. I think that glare you gave Schneider when he bumped into you made him piss his pants."

"What did the Chancellor call it when one of us threatened them with the stick while the other offered the carrot again?" Ludwig inquired.

"Good cop, bad cop. You're the good cop, offering them a way out. I'm the bad cop, threatening them with imprisonment or death." Elya explained.

"It's been very educational working in tandem with you in rooting out democratic resistance in Germania. That's what, the eleventh group now?" He said, counting in his head.

"Twelfth, actually, although I understand why you didn't count that couple in Hamburg." Elya said. "That's the last democratic resistance group in Germania, what do you have for your next task?"

Over the last week, he had coordinated with Frau Muller to coerce over fifty members of the Reichstag, seven newspaper editors, three radio broadcasters, a former admiral and fourteen millionaires by arresting them, then offering them leniency or pardon in exchange for their subordination.

"I have a meeting with General Lehrgen tomorrow afternoon. I expect it to go well, since we're both war enthusiasts. Though from what I heard, he loves war and battles even more than me."

"Be wary of him," Elya warned. "He's a cunning man. He managed to hide an entire army from me, no matter how hard I searched. I only knew he had one in the first place because the Chancellor informed me." Ludwig nodded in acknowledgement.

"By the way, is what they said about you true?" Elya started.

"What, that the Chancellor sent my grandfather a letter?"

"Yes, that one."

"It's true, but I wasn't some hidden protégé of hers or anything. She only started teaching me about how to run the country at the start of this month?"

"How about the rumour that you're her other lover?" Elya asked teasingly.

Ludwig scoffed. "They're still propagating that? Just because we were alone for twenty minutes, that meant we got intimate? If the rumour was true, the Vice Chancellor would have my head on a pike. I saw her war footage last week, I now know what that woman could do with a shovel. Besides, the Chancellor isn't my type."

"What is your type then?" Elya smiled coyly.

"Mature, darker haired, curvy in the right places, intelligent and incredibly dangerous." Ludwig admitted shamelessly.

"Are you flirting with me, your Highness?" Elya laughed.

"Only if you interpret it as flirting."

Elya walked over to the alcohol bottles on the table and poured out two glasses of champagne. "Would be a shame to let these go to waste. This one is from 1890. Care for a taste?" She took a glass and offered him the other. He accepted.

They clinked their glasses together and said simultaneously. "For the future of Germania." With that, both downed their glasses.

22 August 1942,

Chancellor's Office, Berun,

After returning from testing the P-1 a few weeks ago, I immediately ordered the establishment of a new branch of the Department of Research and Development. I had allocated over thirty scientists, researchers and materials experts to develop and explore what I described as a miniaturised semiconductor that uses less power than a vacuum tube, was sturdier and used mainly silicon in its manufacturing, along with germanium and other materials. As someone who only knew of the importance of the transistor but not the technical know-how, that was the most guidance I could afford.

After that, I had focused on training Ludwig, such as telling him about the reasoning behind the legislations that I introduced or taking him with me as a bystander when I talk to ambassadors. His presence seemed to make a few ambassadors nervous, I never understood why. We even sometimes did paperwork together, when he would ask me questions when he was unsure about the language of the legislation. It kind of felt like helping a kid with his homework.

After about two weeks, I felt that he was ready to do his job without my supervision or advice, so I let him loose so he could work independently. Apparently, he had been doing some cooperative work with Elya recently. He told me it had to do something with rooting out traitors. Like a proud parent, I'd almost shed a tear. To think that just two months ago, he was spilling monarchist diatribes. Now, he was actively helping me protect the foundation of Germania's democracy. I wished him and Elya luck and went on with my own work.

The past few weeks, aside from mentoring Ludwig, I had been drafting and passing a bill for an organisation for veteran affairs. It was focused on providing a basic pension, introducing veterans to jobs, vocational training, higher education (if they qualify), healthcare and also to research the effects of PTSD, which was still called shellshock. I even added a provision to provide grants for research into better prosthetics. I planned to present this bill to the rest of OZEV in the meeting three days from now.

As Germania finalises its demobilisation, it will be flooded with hundreds of thousands of veterans. Some of them will be able to find jobs without trouble, but many would not be able to. Whether that was because of physical or mental disability or other unfortunate circumstances, the fates of many of them would be homelessness.

It made me remember my own first few months after the First Great War, with no pension or qualification outside of the military. If it wasn't for the orphanage, homelessness would surely be what awaited me. And I was probably one of the more fortunate ones. I had not suffered any permanent physical disability, unless you count my lack of height, nor was I too mentally traumatised.

If I had been given benefits as a veteran and offered a job right after the war ended, I wonder if I would have gone into politics at all. Likely not.

On giving veterans vocational training and higher education, the Germanian economy was booming like never before, and job positions were opening up left and right, yet there was a lack of manpower due to aftereffects of the war. Despite the Second Great War being relatively quick and clean compared to WW2, Germania had still lost over 150,000 young men. Some of the labour shortage was alleviated with the influx of migrant Francois workers, but it wasn't enough. As such, the vocation training aims to fulfil the need for workers in Germania's industries. In particular, metalworkers, mechanics and electricians were in heavy demand. The offers of higher education for those that qualify for university admission operated under similar reasoning of adding more professionals into the workforce.

Wasting a great number of veterans that would be willing to work but was rendered unable to because of disability or other circumstances was the opposite of my philosophy in efficiently utilising human resources.

I had also heavily emphasised the research of mental health. In the 1940's, mental health was still a taboo topic, with mentally unwell individuals often being institutionalised in asylums and 'treated' with methods barely different from medieval torture. It was the main reason why I had never opened up about my minor shellshock to anyone but my closest friends. As such, the first step to advance mental health was not research into mental health, but rather to destigmatise mental health in the first place. As soon as people could recognise that mental health as a natural part of overall wellbeing, much like physical health, it would push the field of mental health forward by decades.

Nevertheless, that did not mean I could ignore research, so I had allocated a budget for psychologists to research shellshock and find ways to sufficiently treat its symptoms, without making the patients physically or mentally uncomfortable. I had even created an ethics committee to oversee the research.

It was quite a lot of work, but now everything has been finalised. The Department of Veterans Affairs had been established.

I had also checked in on Ugar's work with the nuclear reactor yesterday. There had been no incidents. Not even a single near miss or false alarm. I'd given him the permission to start building more nuclear reactors in Germania then, as long as he followed my stringent safety code and diligently reported any incidents.

Even though the flow of oil was good right now, there was no telling when it could be disrupted. The flow of oil from Azerbaijan was dependent on the mood of the Turkmen Empire. The oil from America was secured, but the Albish could easily block it if they ordered an embargo. Oil coming through the Suez Canal was especially vulnerable, as rebels in Aegypt could easily block the canal. The Russy Tsardom and Legadonia currently does not have the infrastructure or technology to mine its oil. As such, it would be prudent to establish different sources of energy, especially nuclear or renewable ones. Energy independence was a good goal for OZEV to strive for, now that security and survival was no longer a paramount concern. Luckily, a war wasn't going to start anytime soon for any of my crucial oil supplying allies.

After I used the P-1 computation orb, I wondered if I could possibly use an inverted function that Elya proposed to turn a shield into a containment shell against a nuclear malfunction. However, a nuclear meltdown would surely kill the mage keeping the barrier active. I wonder if I could request Schugel to add a remote activation function somehow, so that a mage could activate an inverted barrier while outside of its maximum radius.

Right then, Amelia, one of Elya's girls, came in delivering more paperwork. Sighing in exhaustion, I took the first page of the stack and started reading it. My eyebrows perked up in surprise.

A request for a visit from Ho Chi Minh, President of the Annamese Socialist Republic. It did not go into details why he was coming to visit, but I could deduce it.

He likely wanted me to support Annam in fighting against the Francois. While I thought of keeping colonies as a waste of time and resources, the Francois certainly did not. They would be outraged if I agreed to his request. In fact, the frogs might even demand that I hand him over to them. However, the Francois Republic was not a member of OZEV, so I was not inclined to. We might cooperate on an economic level, as they were part of the MEF, but that doesn't mean we'll comply with their request for an extradition.

Ho Chi Minh would have to offer quite a lot if he wanted my help, knowing my distaste for communism. Of course, communism and socialism, which Annam was operating under, was not completely the same. But they were still very similar, and both went against my philosophy of the free market. Not to mention that a socialist country can easily switch to full communism.

Still, I should at least hear him out. He would be the first socialist leader I would have a conversation with. Taking out my pen, I signed my signature and planted my stamp, leaving a big red "Approved".