"... so let's get on with it, shall we?" Hans Oster said, while seated at the end of the long table where all the government's chief member plus some other important figures were present. "Today's objectives are firstly, reporting and evaluating our current position on this day of the Lord, the first day of nineteen thirty... six! Secondly we must agree to a clear overall course of action over the coming year based on the info we will have hopefully waded through by lunch, leaving the decisions to a full stomach. Are we at an agreement, gentlemen?"
The table erupted with "hear-hears" and moans as it became obvious who celebrated the new year with commitment and who didn't. "Great. I'll be the listening party for a while now, while Schacht will take the floor" Hans gestured at the other end of the long table where Reichskanzler Hjalmar Schacht sat on a authorative brown chair - most comfortable judging by Hjalmar's expression when forced to give up it's precious services by standing up.
Schacht coughed his throat clear and began: "
Entschuldigung. Now, as some of you have already noticed, we have some new members behind this table when compared to the last meeting of the Temporary Administration in December:
Herr Sack has been replaced by
Herr Diels, who have replaced their jobs as Minister of Security and Assistant to Chief of the
Abwehr, who we also have the pleasure of meeting here today, respectively." He nodded to Rudolf Diels, who gave a faint smile in return, and continued: "As I said, the head of the Abwehr is also here now, Wilhelm Canaris. While previously replaced by Wilhelm Frick until
Herr Canaris had more important issues to worry about, no need to elaborate to you, my good men, I am sure..." Canaris smirked gloomily "... and he is now able to attend high-profile government meetings like this one from now on."
Schacht grimaced and sat down, but continued instantly: "Another question which is no doubt on some of your minds," he beamed at Gisevius, who was present despite him not being in the cabinet - it was no secret that Oster was merely one third of the real force behind the country, decisions ultimately fell to Hindenburg, Oster and Gisevius, "I am afraid I must decline the offer to also attain the duties and responsibilities of the Economy Cabinet. I feel that Brüning has done a wonderful job and will continue to do so i the future."
This news was greeted only by a dismissing "tsk" by Gisevius, who tried to make his discontent with Brüning as obvious as possible. "That is all from me for the time being, I am afraid" Schacht finished. "Splendid! I welcome
Herren Diels and Canaris and wish you luck in the days to come." Oster cheerily said, and requested: "Would the Minister of Economy, Heinrich Brüning, please brief us through his area of expertise?"
Brüning coughed his throat clear as well, leaving Gisevius quietly mutter "It's not that cold in here, or is Heinrich just that receptive to ailments?" to his right, where Ernst von Weizsäcker happened to sit. "Yes, uhh..." Brüning murmured "Well, firstly I guess I should clarify our current state of affairs in the economy. Germany is out of the financial crisis, this is now evident. That's why we started the free market reforms a month ago to dismantle Hitler's silly megalomaniacal control over the industries. And so far it's working just perfectly."
"Hitler's rearmament programs also strained our industries to an unnecessary degree - all long term investments scheduled to finish later than summer of 1936 have been cancelled, leaving us only with the building of the KMS Admiral Spree. It is scheduled to be completed and ready for service soemtime this month, so we basically have the entire resources of the nation to exploit now. With the approval of
Herren Oster and Schacht, I've initiated a wide industry expansion - synthetic material production, experimental assembly lines, the works. This will however leave us with a projected deficit in rare materiél, like rubber, for example. We are planning to initiate widespread trading programs to cover for that deficit - mostly with the Soviet Union, or so I am suggested by Weizsäcker."
"As for non-expansion related expenditures, we are currently investing most in supporting the production numerous types of consumer goods - the state of the Reich requires us to lift the morale of our citizens, to stop talks of widespread dissent before they even start. Moving on to demands from
Generaloberst Beck, I am afraid we can allocate resources to only one of those demands. That will be keeping up our weapon industries to produce supplies and ammunition to keep the Wehrmacht in constat combat readiness. However, we cannot start production of more advanced weaponry just yet, as we cannot put enough money into modernization of our weapons industry and it's infrastructure - but we will be able to do so as soon as our industry expansion program is completed." Brüning stopped talking and exhaled wearily.
"Right. We'll ahve time to debate the implications of this report later, but now, would the Foreign Minister Ernst von Weizsäcker start his." Oster waved towards von Weizsäcker, who took some papers from a considerable stack he had made before him. "
Meine Herren, our standing with foreign nations is complicated at the moment. While we've been recognized as the lawful government of Germany, we still have less than warm relations with Italy, Austria and Hungary - all upset about the removal of Hitler. The western countries are much more supportive of us than the Nazi regime however, and should continue to be unless we manage to get a real geopolitical
faux pas done."
Oster, realizing Weizsäcker's report was shorter than expected, asked Diels to present his report. "Of course," Diels stated, "I am up to speed with Sack's work in the past months and have no problems - you'd expect no less, I imagine." Oster smiled. Diels continued "As you know, I am the head of homeland and counter-intelligence - saboteur action and espionage fall to
Herr Canaris, though he also oversees me in the Abwehr command structure. Little is to be said, since we've made little progress on the home front in the last month. Himmler remains at large but we are making every effort to change that. As for counter intelligence, we've built up a considerable network by today, thanks to the rather generous government spenditure of the Abwehr lately. We can feel relatively secure."
Diels gave the word to Canaris, who told his aide to distribute papers with hard to decipher charts and tables on them. "Thank you Rudolf. Our Foreign Intelligence has made some progress on the Austrian question: they've stopped funding and supporting SS units in Bavaria, which they of course can't publically admit - it'd require them to imply that they DID at some point finance SS guerillas. I also have taken the liberty to compose dossier's on the chief four european powers, which you can find on your desks."
Italy
Soviet Union
France
United Kingdom
"From what we can tell, in numbers all of those nations are superior to the Wehrmacht. Investigations in future directions of investment reveal that all of the four powers are interested in expanding their naval forces, whether this is good or bad news really depends of where you stand. We do however have reason to suspect that we are technologically superior to almost all nations on the planet at the time being - our secret projects are far more advanced that theirs."
Oster looked at the paper in front of him for a little while and then asked with less enthusiasm than before: "Beck, could you update us to the state of the Wehrmacht?" Generaloberst Ludwig Beck stood up and started reciting: "The current situation of the Wehrmacht is poor in both paper and the field. Our numbers are small, our equipment is lacking and our hardware is no modern feat. Especially behind are our
Panzers and the
Luftwaffe, which will be of little use in any combat in the foreseeable future. Like
Herr Brüning stated earlier, we have to choose between modernizing and being ready. At the moment we've chosen the latter."
Beck sat down and Oster tried to begin his tirade: "Well, it's obvious to me that we need to settle quite a number of issues here... but it can all wait after lunch." The table was empty in a minute, and remained so for another half an hour.
The only distraction of a Power-Hungry Demagogue.
When all had returned, Oster began to speak: "Firstly, we need to settle the Rhineland question. The we'll move foward to Austria, the general populace, the Heer, trading policies, the fight against the SS and finally aerial and naval expansion. Let's start with the Rhineland question. My personal viewpoint - supported by
Herren Hindenburg and Gisevius - is that not all Hitler's policies were inherently wrong. The Rhineland must be reoccupied for internal reasons at first, to which we'll come later. Do we have an unanimous agreement in this subject or any opposition?" The table remained silent.
"Good. Generaloberst Beck, you have your orders." Beck did indeed have his orders - they were given to him in late December. He wondered why the charade in front of the cabinet, but he was no politician and had other matters to attend to. "This let's us to move on to the Austrian question. Here Canaris' new intel proves extremely valuable, as we now know active support of SS guerillas has ceased from the Austrian government, making our need for retaliation much smaller.
Herr Weizsäcker's suggestion of approachment with the Austrians is a good one, after all, the Austrian nazis aren't so much nazis as they are a right wing authoritarian government, one with which we can make deals, by the way."
"I cannot help but wonder if the Italians have their own approachment policy with Austria, and if our little nazi trouble is making us fall behind in the race," Schacht interjected. "After the removal of Hitler, Mussolini has expressed his desires for an Italian-led fascist alliance more than once, and their northern border is definetly amongst their first concerns. Should we not take more immediate action?"
"We'll see," Weizsäcker told him. "Currently
Conte Ciano has made no official statements as to Austria's position in Italian designs, and the Abwehr has detected no real threat of foul play in that subject either. No need to risk so much on a mere suspicion."
A result of the plan of eventual intervention in Austria
"Then I take it we can agree to take it easy with the Austrians in the close future?" Oster remarked "Perfect! Onwards to the civilian populace. The Nazi ghost still lingers amongst them, especially in
Süddeutschland, and we must take careful steps to exorcise it. Occupying the Rhineland seems like a good way to start, as it'll allow us to use the more popular points in Hitler's program to our advantage, showing the people they have no REAL radical change of course to be afraid of, but it'll also let our government look strong and decisive, a quality we must have when involved in a mild civil war!"
"Apart from the Rhineland, we really cannot divert attention from our internal matter to external ones for the time being. Instead, we can work to bring our economic boom to our populace properly, starting with increased manufacture of luxury goods, earlier proposed by Brüning. That, together with Rudolf Diels' proposed reforms in police and security offices should allow us to keep the nation quite stable. Another matter we must expose is Hitler's numerous hostile policies a la
Nacht der langen Messer and persecution of numerous minorities - it'll help to distance the populace even further from his regime."
"The Wehrmacht. As Beck has informed us, it is in bad shape and we don't have the resources to cure that ailment just yet. So I propose a plan to have the Wehrmacht fully modernized by 1938. The details will be left to Beck and his staff, but that would be a commendable general direction to take."
"Let's also discuss the state of the
Luftwaffe and the
Kriegsmarine while we're at it. I quote from a report from Karl Koller, who couldn't join us today: "The strength of an airforce based on tactical support of ground forces instead of independent strategically geared bomber fleets like advocated by the likes of Giulio Douhet, is mainly the low cost of the former. It also allows the Wehrmacht to work out it's own revolutionary doctrines, essential for winning any war."
"The Heer agrees completely with
Generalmajor Koller, just so I may add."
"Wonderful. This leaves us with the option of funding the research and construction of tactical bombers and close air support aircraft, as well as air superiority fighter aircraft, so following the same path set years ago, basically." Oster searched for another paper and started again: "Quoting another report from newly promoted
Generaladmiral Erich Raeder: "With the completition of KMS Admiral Graf Spree, our Navy will look impressive on paper with 5 battleships and a number of support craft, however this data can be fooling about the real state of affairs in the
Kriegsmarine. Of those 5 battleships, 3 are modern, but very small "pocket battleships", equivalent of Royal Navy heavy cruisers, and the other two are old and weary ships which still wouldn't be classified as battleships by Royal Navy standards, but mere battlecruisers. That's why Germany needs to start a naval rearmament program proper, with at least 4 fifty-tonne Bismarck class battleships to lead it.""
"While this is a sound proposal, we must take into account the actual NEED of a surface navy. Scarce industrial resources cannot be sunk into a program with no dividends in sight. So I am afraid we must shelf this idea for the time being at least."
"
Herr Oster", Beck intervened, "I have no doubt you have also received another proposal from a Karl Dönitz, a promising
Kapitän zur See, to reintroduce widespread use of U-boats in the future
Kriegsmarine."
"I indeed have," Oster replied. "And I find it rather disturbing that all the calculations behind the value of using a U-boat fleet relies on the assumption that we will be in a state of war with the United Kingdom at the time. So that plan is not necessary as long as there is a chance of peaceful co-existance with the brits." The men behind the table started murmuring to their neighbours, no doubt discontent about the categorical refusal of war with Britain.
"Right. Settle down now. We'll now talk about trade - a matter in which Weizsäcker and Brüning should work together to achieve the best results. Would either of you have any suggestions?"
"I will serve to meet any objectives Brüning gives me." Weizsäcker said.
"And I appreciate the support. Hopefully negotiations with the Soviet Union, who seems to be the only realistic trading partner at the moment, will go well."
"That settles that then. Finally, how is the fight against the SS going at the moment, Diels?"
"Well enough, Reichspräsident." Diels answered. "Already civilian support for Himmler's troops is eroding thanks to their methods of operation. Wehrmacht units have cleared all major population centers from SS influence, and their main base of operations remains somewhere in the Bavarian mountains. We don't need any extra resources at the moment, to be honest. It's just a matter of time now."
"Then that's better than we though, good! Well, that's about it then,
Herren. I can call this meeting to a close. It has been most productive, I can definetly say. Thank you all for coming."
"Yes, Reichspräsident."
