NOW3

Opinions expressed in this piece are not automatically those of the author. It's still been fighting me all the way.

Chapter Three

Hauptgefreiter[1] Michael Drescher had wormed his way through the group of protesters that assembled outside the barracks gates every day with the regularity of a Swiss clock. The base of his unit, 12. Panzer-Regiment[2] near Cologne was a preferred destination for those who protested rearmament, and when he had left there yesterday he had seen the usual group of people holding up the signs.

For most Germans not 'in the know' it had all started in 1956 during a Head of State meeting of the European Coal and Steel Union when then-Chancellor Schumacher had said that there would be a time when Germany had to pull her weight to preserve freedom. The Social Democrats had lost the elections held that same year, but the seed had been planted.[3]

When in 1959 Chancellor Erhardt had announced that Germany was to sign the Allied Charter it was less of a surprise than most had thought. The public uproar on the other hand had been. It was an incredibly divisive issue in post-war Germany, hardly surprising considering that a mere eight years before the foundation of the (armed) Federal Border Guards had been decried as 'trying to sneak militaristic structures' into the German police system.

That the French had left the Pact over this issue was drowned out in Germany in the whirlwind of demonstrations by proponents and opponents of rearmament that were so violent at times that often the police had to intervene, degenerating into open rioting in Frankfurt and Berlin of all places.

It had been a Priest who had spoken out loud what many of the opponents felt.

Every step of the way, from the establishment of the Ministry of Defence under Kai-Uwe von Hassel[4] to the Chancellor's speech to the first five-thousand volunteers, to his outline of the new force structure after the hairs width win of the 1960 elections to the declaration of operational readiness of the first units had all been accompanied by more demonstrations and all sorts of protests. A minor victory for the peace movement had been that there was no conscription, and that except in war or emergencies such as natural disasters were not to be used internally.

Drescher's father however was a special case. In Exile in Norway during the war, he had spent the entirety of the war decrying the madness of it all, writing pamphlets for his idealistic and naïve 'International Peace Party' that called for an immediate end to the war and the return to pre-war borders, he had decried the British for pursuing the war to it's logical conclusion, he had decried Norway for 'aggressive rearmament' when instead it had been 'well armed neutrality' and then instantly returned to Germany after the end of the war to build a peaceful utopia.[5]

That hadn't worked out well, and by the time rearmament was announced Karl Drescher had turned from an incredibly naïve pacifist and appeaser into a disgruntled pacifist who was no longer naïve but had quite literally tossed Micheal out of the flat when the latter had declared that he was signing on for the Army. Their relationship had never been good since his mother had died in 1949, there had been months when he had seen his father two or three times.

And still his father pretended he had any form of say over his son, even though he had passed the magic twenty-one years of age just before he had entered the newly established Panzer School in Grafenwöhr, an already ancient town plus training area where already the Kaiser's men had trained well before the turn of the century. It was when he had hopped on the train nigh on two years ago that he had last spoken to his father, and things had not gone well.

So now these two men of the same blood but wildly differing political convictions were standing in a small flat in Cologne and doing what they had done for the last hour, staring at each other without saying a word.

“So, have the finished teaching you how to slaughter the innocent?” Drescher the elder began.

“So, have you learned how not to be a naïve little child?” replied Michael, having lost all respect for his father after their last meeting.

“I see the brainwashing has had it's effect, or you wouldn't have gone against my wishes.”

Michael fumed inwardly. Nothing had changed. “Oh come off it, Father. There isn't one giant conspiracy designed to us destroy the world.”

“You fail to understand that any military has only one reason to exist, to destroy everything in it's path.”

Knowing that his father would soon start to rant about how World War Two could have been avoided through negotiations and how the anything but the complete demilitarization of Canada, Poland and Romania was the only way to avoid a third one.

You know Father, I was just here to tell you that my Regiment has been given deployment orders and that, should you want to contact me in spite of being utterly irrational you will have to jump over your shadow and use the Heerespost.”

With that Michael turned and walked out of the flat. Once outside he walked to the bus stop and waited there. He would have to join his unit within the next three hours.

The line passed the Kreismeldebüro[6] probably not by accident, and he could see the usual group of protesters in front of it, even though the numbers had dwindled from the masses that had turned out in 1960 and 1961. By now a great many still opposed the idea but had resigned themselves to the political realities that had emerged.

Ironically the projected strategic mission of the German Armed Forces had changed much since they had been founded. In the face of the British and Canadian Nuclear Arsenal and the increasing strength of the European continent the Russians had in 1962 signed the 'Treaty of Warsaw' in which the Russian Republic on one side and the British Empire, Poland and France on the other side guaranteed the European borders.

Signing away the Ukraine and the formerly Russian territories in the Baltic states had enraged some of the Hardliners around the Junta in Moscow, but it had secured European peace for the foreseeable future, guaranteed by a combination of British V-Bombers and Russian reluctance to destroy the much needed economic links with the European nations. Like in Tsarist times, Russia turned east.

The Signature Ceremony

As a result the Bundeswehr was an Armed Force in search of a mission. Quite obviously the only real option was German Participation in CanCom or 'Canada Command', a catch-all term for Allied Forces tasked to defend Canada from the UAPR. The problem there was that so far the Canadians refused to accept them, so when Oberst Marseille had said that everyone was watching it was true. The vultures were circling.

~*~---~*~

The Priest knocked on the door of the flat in one of the new high-rise buildings that were sprouting up all over the city. Normally he would have disliked the new anonymity that this brought, but in the past, today and in the future this worked to the advantage of him and his associates.

After a complicated system of knocks and counter-knocks the door was opened and he was greeted in the traditional manner of his people and stepped through the doorway.

Once inside the priest followed the other man into the central room where four more men were waiting.

“Brothers, I am grateful that you agreed to join us today. We have a problem.”

“I have heard about that.” said the leader of the group. He was hampered by a broken leg that he had suffered when a podium he had been speaking on collapsed, and so his aide had taken over the connections to the leadership in their country.

“What about the...” the leader asked. “He will play along, Brothers. He is in fact at this moment actively aiding out cause.”

“So what is the problem then?” asked one of the lower ranked members of the group.

“It is the British, brothers. They are trying to buy over the our leader with arms deals.”

It was a tempting proposition. Their country was mostly armed with elderly British and latterly slightly newer Russian-made equipment, and the massive amount of Petropounds that came rolling into the national treasury were to a large part dedicated to that country's armed forces, but lately the political development had led to the British imposing an arms embargo, which was promptly followed by the Russians who hadn't done it out of internationalist duty but rather because the Russian army was reorganizing itself in the face of rising tensions between the UAPR and the People's Republic of China that threatened to upset the delicate balance that had emerged when the nations of Northern China had emerged from the carnage of the Asian Front of World War Two. The French were about to break most ties with the British over London's flat out refusal to back the French position in Algeria, and they were in no mood to sell to anyone.

Clearly if the British were willing to even think about lifting the Arms embargo (called 'trade restrictions') then any politician worth his salt would have to at least consider things.

However for these men that was the primary issue.

They had found together over the foreign influences in their country and their plans all had the end to rid their nation of them. That this would not be easy and that their leader was what they saw as a dangerous man in that regard had necessitated the secrecy.

“There is little we can do about this right now, Brothers. We need more time to prepare our move. We need to bring the people to our side and that will take consideration and careful handling.”

“Then Brothers,” the leader went on, “let us disperse now and meet again at the pre-appointed time.”

With that all the members of the Brotherhood went their own way.

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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?

The pic btw was taken in Warsaw. But in 1955. And for a wholly different Pact. :D

[1] ER-3.

[2] The Heer is, like most Allied Armies, structured along the lines of the Reformed Regimental System as developed by the British during WW2. The Brigade is mostly an administrative unit and operationally the Division's Commander directs the Regiment Battlegroups (as used during the second half of WW2) directly.

[3] TTL only Nixon can go to China, to quote an old Vulcan proverb.

[4] If you know me well enough you know that I absolutely detest the Bavarian they gave this job IOTL at the time.

[5] In OTL he'd probably gone to the Soviet Zone/GDR. Personally I'd classify him as the sort of 'useful Idiot' type of person.

[6] District Recruiting Office.