Post by simon darkshade on Oct 13, 2020 12:25:52 GMT
A New Jerusalem Part 1
Berlin
March 10th 1945
How the mighty had fallen.
The shattered wreckage of the Reichstag rose from the broken and rubble-strewn streets like the smashed skull of a giant. The scorched scars of dragonflame and spellfire stood out amidst the devastation wrought by bombs and artillery. Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich had lasted barely a dozen years, not a thousand, yet its ruins had a nature that was more akin to that of giants than humanity; not that humanity was a quality that would be associated with them in any case.
The rays of the wan afternoon sun provided but little warmth, but none of the Allied troops found themselves in need on this day. For, after so many long years of pain, of toil and of suffering, they had victory. A Dreadnought slowly rumbled into the broken square of the Konigsplatz, brushing aside the rubble almost effortlessly as it inched on its way towards the Tiergarten and dwarfing the other tanks, even the hulking Cromwells, which now stood stationary, their war won. Oh, the fighting itself continued beyond Berlin, in the last spasms of the monstrous beast after its wicked head had been severed, but it was only a matter of time before the remaining German forces surrendered and there would be peace once again.
That much was the meaning of the huge red and white flag which now waved from the broken roof of the Reichstag. It was extremely fitting, thought Colonel Stanley Barton, that the Poles won that particular honour; the first victims of Nazi Germany sealing their fate had a grim symmetry to it, not to mention justice.
The big guns were silent as well and long may they remain so. Soon the surviving civilian populace of Berlin would hear that and the other signs and start to find their way forth to a new world of capitulation. Their luck could be worse, though. He had heard of some of the things the Russians were said to be up to out to the east; whilst the Allies had no love for the Germans after this long and bloody war, there was an ocean of difference between that and the other business.
“Sir?”
He turned to see his adjutant, Captain Halford, making his way up through the wreckage of battle.
“Ah, Halford. What news? Is it true then?”
“Yes sir. The German garrison have surrendered, unconditionally. It’s over.”
“What about the other rumour? Did they find anything?”
“It was a hell of business even getting across Unter den Linden; the Thirty-Sixers really gave it a plastering and there is nothing but a crater where the Brandenburg Gate was. I couldn’t find out anything for sure, sir - the Commandos and the Yanks have the whole area around the bunker locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”
“Very well. Get my Land Rover; I’m going back up to brigade. Make sure the men are fed and well watered - they’ll want to remember this day for a long time.”
The Allied push to Berlin had been the largest single operation of the War in the West, so much so that the Battle of Berlin had been given no single codename; this was the final battle and subterfuge had been left behind on the Rhine. General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery had hurled 60 divisions from five armies at the heart of Hitler’s Germany, spearheaded by the American, British and Canadian paratroopers of the Allied Airborne Army. More than 1.5 million soldiers from seemingly every nation among the Allies had been in here at the death, although the major weight had been borne by Patton and Bradley’s Americans, Campbell’s and Dempsey’s Britons, Simonds’ Canadians, Freyberg’s Anzacs, Giraud’s French and Sikorski’s Poles.
Hundreds upon hundreds of Centurions, Crusaders, Pershings and Shermans had lead the way into Berlin, behind more than fifty thousand guns. The resistance offered by the Wehrmacht had been ground down and blasted out by overwhelming and total force, with few units able to hold up the advance for more than hours, no matter how fanatically they fought. The five lines protecting Berlin had been penetrated in dozens of places, yet, even in the face of inevitable defeat, the fanatic Nazi remnants fought on, knowing that there would be no miracle for the Third Reich. In Barton's sector, the Waffen SS had fought particularly ferociously, but flame and steel and shell had their measure.
Just over a hundred miles away, the Soviet Red Army lay on the other side of the Oder, bringing their own destruction upon Nazi Germany, yet lying just a bridge too far away. Perhaps there has been some momentary consideration for a joint assault upon the final citadel of Hitlerism, but those matters lay well above Barton’s pay grade. It was a symbol, though, of the new world that lay after the war, one of two great and powerful blocs no longer united by a common foe.
The silence of the guns now matched the silence of the skies, where the American and British bombers now no longer flew on their voyages of dread punishment. The war had been won on the ground, but the overwhelming power of the heavies had been unmatched by Germany or any other foe or friend alike. Long before the tanks and guns and men had bought the war to the fascist capital, fighting their own Battle of Berlin a year ago, and thousands of USAF and RAF bombers had smashed its defences before this last battle. War from the air had changed so much during these last six years and promised to do even more; the fates of nations and empires were tied up in it.
Now, with the war in Europe on the verge of ending, these fates and the new world were coming together to create a future that was as uncertain as it was promising. Out of such destruction, such waste and such suffering, something better had to come. He had given thought to the matter on the road from Normandy to Berlin. How could Britain keep her place and make a brighter tomorrow for the generations to come? How could good come from such terror? Could swords be beaten into ploughshares? Was the future doomed to the dark and hellish as the battered ruins of Hitler’s capital?
Barton looked out over the ruins of war and ground his teeth as he scowled. Victory was here, but at a terrible cost to all. Even nature itself had been damaged by the horrors of this latest Great War. There had to be something else - there had to be a new world born out of the ashes of this devastation and terror.
And then he had a wonderful idea.
—————————————————————————
Berlin
March 10th 1965
Twenty years.
Strange to think of how much had changed in two decades. He never thought then that he would be back here, once the war was done, let alone under these circumstances. The view from inside the Reichstag was rather different from that of the square, which was to be expected.
“Prime Minister? They’re ready for you.”
“Right, lets get this over and done with.”
...............................................................................
“Chancellor von Sternberg, Members of the Reichstag. I stand before you as the third Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to visit your country and the first to address your ranks. This is not the first time I have come to Berlin, though. Twenty years ago, I was here as an officer of the Allied Expeditionary Force. We came then in war and were victorious. The world had been shattered by war.
In twenty years, Germany has come far, from the depths of destruction to a new and peaceful country. All of Europe and all of the free world supports you in this. All men deserve the right to live in peace, in justice and in freedom. That is what is at stake here in Berlin, that is what is at stake in Germany and in Austria-Hungary and that is what is at stake all over the world. For it is all over the world that free men are standing together in defence of liberty - in the trackless depths of African plains, in the searing sands of the Levant, in the soaring mountains of India and in the jungles of Indochina. That unifies us - the unshakable drive to protect the rights of man to be the master of his own destiny.
Today, I am here in peace, as a friend and as an ally. Together, the British Empire and Germany stand, alongside the other great nations of the free world. We stand, against aggression and oppression, against tyranny and wickedness and against the threat of communism from the Soviet Union. Britain stands and will continue to stand. We have given our word and we will keep it. Whatever needs to be done, we will do. Whatever price we must pay, we will.
As we go forward, we go forward together.”
“Right, lets get this over and done with.”
