This is a fairly heavy chapter.
Omake: Frieda Hacke
Ahhh...
With nothing but the crackling light of a fire illuminating her, a young woman sat in a lavish living room. Her legs were bare, boots long since discarded in favor of movement and comfort. She lounged in her comfy chair, staring up at the ceiling. Her eyes were shut tightly and her hands held a pipe to her lips. She sucked in a deep sigh, letting the smoke spread through her lungs. She barely paid any mind to the man sitting across from her, nor the woman standing at his back. She'd talk when she was ready to talk.
Exhaling a puff of smoke that more resembled the plume of a ship at sea than a human breath, she cracked open brilliant green eyes.
"So. You want to know more about my Admiral and what we've been up to?" Frieda Hacke let her gaze fall down, locking onto the man and woman across from her.
"I'll admit to being curious about it." Louis returned the look, crossing his fingers under his chin. The young man was more curious than anything else, something reflected in the firelight on his eyes. The expression of someone hunting for an answer. "I trust you, and your Admiral, enough to agree to help these poor people. My...my grandfather and father were not always the most forgiving of the Jews, but I can't just let them suffer. If even a tenth of what I've been told about the Camps in Poland is true, I would damn my own soul to ignore it and not use what power I have to help."
Louis narrowed his eyes, ever so slightly, with his next words. "However, asking me to make a statement against the Nazis and to try and become the figurehead of this movement? My family has survived the insanity of those butchers because we renounced everything. If I, or any of us, made any claim otherwise..."
"If I may?" Frieda held up a hand, waving it a little in the air. At the reluctant nod, she let a grim smile cross her face. "There's no one else who
could be a figurehead. My Admiral...he doesn't trust himself with that kind of power, and doesn't believe that the other officers would let him have it anyway. If we just kill Hitler and his
lackeys, all we'd do is create an empty seat. The Generals will ignore my Admiral or
Herr Oster and just create a council to continue the War. Germany would burn."
What neither the woman, nor the man, vocalized was the knowledge that it would
destroy Germany. There were not enough people who hated Hitler. If they just killed him, even if the military stepped into control and purged the Nazis, it would do nothing but damage the country even further. Doom it to foreign rule and destruction.
"And that is why you need me instead." Louis finished, leaning back in his own chair. He let out a soft sigh when his wife, Kira, placed a hand on his shoulder. "I...am loathe to admit it, but you are hardly wrong. My family may not be what it once was, but if anyone could convince the Generals to fall in line, it would be myself or my father. And my father is in ill-health."
It was
also left unsaid that Louis' father would hardly do anything to help the Jews, other than stop killing them in droves. That he wouldn't sign any peace with the West that didn't involve territorial gains for Germany and recognition of the Polish border and puppet. Maybe even continuing the war with the Bolsheviks. Louis was not his father, thankfully. He was friends with the American President, even. He would never, ever, continue any policy of Hitler or his cronies.
Otherwise, Frieda and her Admiral wouldn't work with him. Even though the former was loyal to this man, second only
to her Admiral.
"This is all academic, of course. You already have my support." The young man sighed heavily, shaking his head. A remorseful expression alighted across his face, the first lines beginning to crinkle around his eyes. "I already regret that Wilhelm and I couldn't do anything to stop this madness. All the power our family still had, and we just...sat by and watched. Bless his soul, Wilhelm even fought in France. We were loyal to Germany first. We always were..."
As Louis trailed off, his wife squeezed his shoulder. Kira looked despondently on her husband, before turning her gaze on Frieda. A calculating look entered into the Russian's eyes, as she seemed to struggle for something to say. Frieda merely rose her eyebrow, and took another long puff on her pipe.
"I think I already know what you're going to ask about, my Lady." Frieda let out a soft breath, smoke blowing through her nostrils. She looked past Kira, towards the starry night outside the only window. Oh how she wished she were out there, under the stars on the waves.
No, she was here. She had a different duty now.
"Then you should have no problem answering." Kira's voice was cold and even past her accent, Frieda could feel the vehemence in it. "All this talk about replacing the butchers in Germany. Saving the Jews." Here, her eyes narrowed slightly. "And what is being done to save
my people? How many must die before you are willing to throw down the madmen?"
Frieda took a drag on her pipe, and raised an eyebrow. Her next words were bitter all on their own. "Are they
your people? I was under the impression that wasn't the case, after they murdered most of your family and threw the rest out with the rags on their backs. Or am I wrong?"
That rather quickly took the wind out of Kira's sails. "I--I hate the Bolsheviks. More than you could possibly imagine."
"On that, we're all in agreement. I came too close to seeing them do the same in Germany, all those years ago." Frieda's voice softened, as her own memories took over. She remembered a crew that refused to sortie. Men that looked at the Communists as an ideal. She hadn't seen the end-result of that, but she knew what had happened nonetheless.
Still, when she looked at Kira, she felt a pang in her heart. Frieda had seen enough suffering in her time in Holland to recognize it, and she'd softened substantially from her time in the
Hochseeflotte.
Oh, Franz. You'd not recognize me anymore. I'm not the same woman who just charged into the fangs of death itself without a care in the world.
And so, instead of berating Kira or speaking her feeling of 'why should I care about the Russians?', Frieda got to her feet. She walked towards Louis and Kira...and bowed her head slightly. "For what it is worth, my Lady, the Admiral has said much the same to me."
Kira blinked, and stared at the top of Frieda's head. "What do you mean? From what Louis has told me, your Admiral loathes the Bolsheviks. Why would he have any reason to care about your army killing my people?"
Instead of answering, Frieda thought back to much the same conversation...
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"I understand why you hate the Nazis, Admiral. But...why do you have the Reds that much?"
Admiral Schreiber had looked past her, towards a similarly crackling fire. It had been only a few days before she had been sent to Holland, and the last time she had talked to the man in person. Even then, she had seen the weight of worlds upon his shoulders. He was thinner than any man his age should have been, thinner for sure than Franz had been. He looked tired all the time. This was a man who pushed himself for no material gain, despite having every reason to just go with the Nazis.
She deeply respected him for that, even after he had brought her back.
"...you already know that I'm not from this time, my friend." He finally spoke, his voice every bit as tired as his body. Faded blue stared into green, as Schreiber looked away from the fire. "I grew up during what the Americans called a 'Cold War' with the Russians. Communism and Capitalism against each other. Germany was, as it is now, caught in the middle. After this war...after Hitler ruined our nation, the Soviets controlled half of the country, after giving all of Prussia to the Poles. My family had to leave Prussia."
"You were---"
Holding up a hand, Schreiber shook his head. His eyes had reddened, ever so slightly. "No, if it were only that, I would dislike them but not hate them as I do. You must understand. The West created a democratic German Republic, the one that I eventually served in my own time. The Soviets refused to let Germany reunify, and their little puppets in Berlin were all too eager to have their own power. The Stasi was every bit as bad as the Gestapo, in their own way. Thousands vanished. Thousands more were broken in their interrogation rooms. I had to watch many good men come home, broken and beaten down. You couldn't even talk about it, because every other man or woman or child could be an informant. One word. One word of dissent, and you were gone."
With each word, his voice grew softer and more embittered. Frieda could only listen silently, unable to comprehend what he was telling her. It seemed so...wrong. To believe that, even after the Nazis were gone, Germany would continue like that. The Empire had never been so bad, even at its worst.
"My own father was taken from me, when I was but a little child." The Admiral finally whispered, at the end. His shoulder slumped down, as a far-away look entered his eyes. The kind of look that spoke of deep, unfading trauma. "When Germany finally unified, again, I was happy to join the Bundesmarine. I could finally follow my dream of seeing the sea. I never dreamed I'd end up in the here and now, in a state worse than even the Germany I grew up in."
"You...you hate the Russians for what they did to your family, sir?" Frieda asked, figuring that she finally had her answer. She wasn't entirely wrong.
Schreiber nodded, tiredly. "I do. For my father, and for so many other innocent lives taken. It wasn't just Germany. Poland, Romania, Hungary...so many died in their control. It's hard, you know." The Admiral turned, and looked in the direction of the Ostfront. East. "I know how many lives are being taken, even now, by Hitler's men. I've sent Blücher to fight against them as well. Millions will die and I...I can't bring myself to do anything to stop it."
Frieda stared at him. "Aren't you doing everything you can to stop Hitler? I'm going to Holland to save the Jews, too. That is something."
"True." Even with that word, the Admiral still shook his head. He looked almost broken, by what he said next. "And yet, I sink transports bringing supplies there. I am eager to fight against the Arctic Convoys. I can't, I never have been able to, forget or forgive. If I need to damn my own soul, to keep Germany safe from the Russians, I will do it. If...if I can just keep my father from ever knowing the suffering he faced, it would be worth it in the end."
The Admiral looked Frieda dead in the eyes, his entire expression radiating a deep and hidden pain. She would never know, but not even Blücher had been told what he told her now. What father wanted his daughter to see him at his worst?
"I hate myself, every day, for the knowledge that so many will die in the fires of the East, because I want to preserve a Germany worth living in."
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"...as hard as it may be to believe, he hates the Russians, but hates himself even more." Frieda finished her story, finally looking up at the nobility before her. Louis' face held a pained grimace, the man slowly shaking his head. Kira held a hand to her mouth, the barest hint of tears at the corner of her eyes.
"Millions...millions will die in the East?"
It was rather telling, that neither of them reacted to the revelation that her Admiral wasn't from this time. Frieda had felt little need to conceal it. Not from this man, not when Louis was the best hope they had for a unified Germany. No. Both of them were struck by the pain her Admiral felt, and by the knowledge of what was to come, in the East.
So, all Frieda did was nod her head. "Millions. Germans, Russians, Poles, Ukrainians, Romanians..."
Kira shook her head jerkily, "Stop...please. Stop. I can't take hearing anything else."
"I asked, you know." Frieda's voice softened, and she looked Kira in the eye. "I asked if I could have gone to the East, to try and stop the war. Or at least break up the camps killing so many. The Admiral told me that doing that would only risk everything we're working for. The quickest way to end the war, is to build up our Resistance and take our chance to remove Hitler. If we can do that even two years early..."
"...then millions will live, who would have died." Louis finished, speaking for the first time since Kira had spoken. His eyes had hardened, and the spark of fire had entered into them. He sat straighter, looking much more like the man he
should have been. "You're certain that we can't do anything to stop the War sooner? A negotiated peace?"
Frieda could only shrug. "The Admiral is trying, with the British. The Reds would never accept anything that involves them not taking Eastern Europe. From what he's told me, if we aren't careful to discredit Hitler first, the best case we could get is having to spend
years convincing Germany he isn't a martyr who was stabbed in the back."
Both Louis and Kira almost
hissed at that terminology. Frieda could understand the reaction. No matter how she felt about the mutinies, it hadn't been the German government that lost the Great War. She knew that much. If Germany felt that they were betrayed again...
An armistice for twenty years? Is that what the French bastard called it?
"So we must save Germany, while destroying Germany." Louis finished, his eyes narrowed in thought.
"So the Admiral says." Frieda nodded. "I have the feeling he has some sort of plan to cause losses in the East that would embarrass the Nazis while improving his own reputation. At least, the reputation of people who he trusts. I know he wants to try and get Guderian on-side with the Italians, too."
Louis nodded, climbing to his feet. He sent a steadying smile at his wife, before turning fully to face Frieda. "I will help, in any way I can. I still have friends in the press and the military. Wilhelm, bless his memory, had many friends as well. I
will find a way to expose the camps. No good German will accept such horrors."
He had no way of knowing that plenty of Germans
had. However, when spoken by that man, it seemed almost like you could believe him. And, who knows, he may be right. When told by their own countrymen...when shown it and when shown how the Nazis would try to justify it...
Maybe, just maybe, Germany wouldn't doom its soul and memory to hell.
"You have my support until the end, Your Majesty." Freida Hacke snapped off a perfect
Kaiserliche Marine salute. Heels clicked together, as she smiled at the man before her.
Louis Ferdinand von Hohenzollern smiled back, clumsily returning the salute. "I, for one, am thankful to have you...Seydlitz."
I had this one in the pipeline for a long time. Yes, every bit of it. I just had to rush it out now. For obvious reasons.
I operate on a 'show things when they need to be shown' theory of writing. Schreiber considers Blücher to be his daughter. We've already established he hates how he's made her and Bismarck hate the Russians like he does. It is not that hard a leap to go from there, to he deliberately hides the worst of his pain from them.
Like, seriously, what man wants his daughter to see the very worst of him?
Frieda- Seydlitz -is different. She's a close confidant, the first ship girl he brought back. He can tell her things he wouldn't dare let his daughter know. If he told Blücher half of what he told her, she would tear her way off her hull and go strangle Hitler. So, ergo, this omake was always intended to dig more into his mentality. That I had to bring it forward more than I wanted, is unfortunate, but it doesn't really materially change anything in it.
As for Frieda...this is a lot of hints in her name and mannerisms, as well as a walking homage to her namesake on her part.
Frieda=feminine form of Friedrich (von Seydlitz)
Hacke=maiden name of his wife
pipe=a reference to being a coal burner...and something that von Seydlitz was known for. Specifically, he smoked a pipe and used throwing it away as a signal to attack.
Franz von Hipper had Seydlitz as his flagship
I don't know when the next update will be, for obvious Star Wars related reasons. We'll see. >.>
