Lothar’s descendant

[Rheinbund]

8 January 1956
Province Emsland, Eiffelland

Eiffelland’s souternmost province, Emsland, had a very flat landscape. There were only some hills in the North; the remainder of the province consisted of grass lands and sand grounds. Sand grounds, but not deserts; Southern Eiffelland was not warm enough for that. Instead, there were quite a lot of pine-forests on the sand grounds. Emsland mainly lived from cattle breeding and forestry, but because this province was sparsely populated, it also contained exercise areas for the Armed Forces. In the past, farmers were bought out at reasonable prices and offered land elsewhere to get one large united exercise area for the armed forces. And there was quite some testing to do. First of all: Two new fighter planes from Dassau Flugzeugwerke that were scheduled to enter the market in 1959.
Dassau Flugzeugwerke was one of the first companies to introduce a supersonic plane, but it saw the need to go further. The new planes were designed to fly twice the speed of sound. The Luftgeist was a plane developed together with Bourgogne, which called it Mirage. The other plane was a 100% Eiffellandian design, the Wassergeist. It was called that way because it had to be able to land on and take off from aircraft carriers. However, although a 100% Eiffellandian design, it used many of the design features of the Luftgeist. Dassau had built prototypes of both planes, and both planes would fly for the first time today.
But not only planes were tested here. Dassau Flugzeugwerke and Rathenau Militärausrüstung had a joint-venture in which they developed missiles together. Rathenau was the company that would market these missiles. Heat seeking air‑to‑air missiles had already been tested once, but were not available to the market yet (although that would happen soon). Also air‑to‑surface and surface‑to‑air systems were tested.

The plane testing didn’t go as expected.

The prototype of the Luftgeist was the first one to go into the air. The plane took off without a problem. Then it also crossed the sound barrier without a problem. Because everything went without problems, the test pilot accelerated further. The plane had been designed to reach Mach 2 and beyond, and reached it. But then something unexpected happened. The plane suddenly became unstable. Something nobody had expected. The test pilot barely managed to keep the plane in control. He immediately reduced the speed and returned to the testing facility. He landed without any problems.
After that, the Wassergeist went into the air. Also here the same picture. Everything went well, until the pilot reach Mach 2. Then the plane became unstable. The pilot decelerated and flew back.

The problems were discussed after the test flights. Meteorological data were re‑evaluated to detact any strange athmospheric circumstances. None were found. The lead engineer decided that additional investigations were needed. Later on, upon his suggestion, a wind tunnel capable of creating wind speeds of 3,000 km/h would be built to investigate the phenomenon. The cause of the phenomenon would be found. It would be called “

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”. Also other problems regarding instability would be found and solved. All problems together would postpone the introduction of the Luftgeist and the Wassergeist to 1960.

The leading engineer of the project was a man in his fifties, in perfect physical health. But that was the result of a genetic predisposition. The first Eiffellandian reaching an age of 100 years was somebody in his mother’s family, and his father’s family was extremely healthy as well. His paternal and maternal families originated from the Harz, and his parents still lived there. He himself moved to Trier when he was offered a job at Dassau Flugzeugwerke after he absolved his technical studies. He also had a flying permit, so sometimes he flew to his parents in the Harz in a small private aeroplane.
After today’s tests, he was called by his wife. It appeared that his father, a 78 year old man who still made long walks through the mountains even during winter, had found a corpse during today’s walk. The police had told him that it was probably the corpse of somebody who was reported missing a month earlier.

 

[Rheinbund]

21 January 1956
Trier, Eiffelland


There were two churches in Trier that had a rather peculiar design. One of them was the Sankt Michaelsdom. This church, dedicated to the Archangel Michael and built between 1884 and 1895 on the fundaments of the previous church that had burnt down, was a rectangular, almost square building, as if it were a Protestant church. Furthermore, the main entrance was at one of the longer sides and not at one of the shorter sides. The interior of the church, however, was fitted up as a round church with the altar facing the main entrance. This left quite a lot of space on the sides, wich was filled with many small chapels and crypts, as well as extra room for the Stations of the Cross. This was the church where the Royal Family attended mass when it was in Trier. The Royal Palace was situated on the other side of Unter den Kastanien, the main road through the Trierer centre where all the ministries and the Universität der Stadt Trier were located. Currently the Royal Palace was renovated, so the King resided in the official summer palace Charlottenburg. These renovations started in 1945 and would end soon.
The other church was the Sankt Hedwigkirche, which was a round building. Actually Prince Ludwig liked this church more than the Sankt Michaelsdom, which he considered too pompous for its task. He would never understand what had gone into the minds of his greatgrandfather and the architects who designed the building. OK, he knew that his greatgrandfather had a very pompous character (and that Eiffelland still had to thank God that it was already a constitutional monarchy when King Philipp V acceded to the Throne), but nevertheless. When he was in Trier and wanted to have some moments on his own to pray or think, he went incognito to the Sankt Hedwigkirche.
Despite his homosexuality, despite the fact that he wasn’t a virgin any more, and despite the fact that he knew that the Tiburan Catholic Church rejected homosexuality, Ludwig believed in God. He had serious doubts with some of the teachings by the Church (especially the ones labelling him as a sinner), but those doubts didn’t prevent him from believing in God. So he went to Church and he prayed.

Two weeks ago, Matthias’s body had been found in the Harz. He had been hit by a van and then fallen into a ravine, at least that was what the autopsy revealed. The police were still investigating the accident. Currently the garages in the Harz were asked if they had to repair any vans that seemed to have hit a man. Ludwig had the feeling that it was at least not completely an accident, although he would never say that. In any case, no accident had been reported on the road where Matthias fell from.
Matthias was buried in the family crypt in the village church of Luckenwalde last weekend. Ludwig and his parents the King and Queen attended the mass on behalf of the Royal Family. The church was full of people, but the only ones speaking were the priest, Matthias’s father and brothers, and Ophelia. Nobody else got the opportunity to speak, probably because the Luckenwaldes wanted to prevent that something would be said that they wanted to keep a secret.

The funeral was a complete Luckenwalde show with a side role for the Stolzenaus. Ludwig hadn’t had the opportunity to really say goodbye. He also knew that he would never be allowed entrance to the Luckenwalde crypt. Five days later, he went to the Sankt Hedwigskirche to pray and burn a candle for Matthias.
At the beginning of the new year, the weather had turned from relatively warm to freezing cold. Now it was still freezing, but today the sun was shining. Earlier this week, it had been snowing. The roads were clear now, but the pavements were still partly covered with snow. Also the church was cold. Ludwig stamped the snow off his shoes before entering the church. Then he burnt a candle knelt down and prayed.

“Isn’t there something you have to confess?” a woman’s voice asked. Ludwig was still kneeling in front of the altar where he was burning his candle. He finished his prayer, and then looked up. A woman in a long mantle wearing large sunglasses and a headscarf was sitting next to him.
“You’re very concentrated when you’re praying,” the woman said. And now Ludwig realised that indeed he hadn’t noticed her at all. She could have killed him on the spot. Normally he would have been more aware of his surroundings, but not now. “But you should have gone to the confessional chair first. Or were you there earlier?”
“Why are you wearing sunglasses in a dark church and did you put on a headscarf when you know that your voice will betray who you are while you ask your impertinent questions, Ophelia von Stolzenau?” Ludwig asked.
“Aren’t you here out of regret then, Your Highness Prince Ludwig von Dietz-Hadamar?” the woman asked. “In the end you are guilty of Matthias’s death with your sinful aptitude. In the end you are the one who turned Matthias crazy. If you would have stayed out of the game and would not have seduced him, he would have married me and would still have been alive. It is your sinful yearning for lust that chased Matthias to his death.”
“What kind of marriage would it have been between you and Matthias? You didn’t love him, you only loved the fact that you were finally going to form a traditional family. You’re almost 30 years old, and you’re still Fräulein von Stolzenau. That alone would not have been a problem, but contrary to many women of your age, even many noble women, the only thing you were educated for was being the wife of somebody. And that while you completely lack the ability to really love somebody. The only thing you love are jewels. The fact that you consider it more important to insult me than to mourn for Matthias shows you once more as the loveless creature you are known to be. That loveless character of yours is the only reason why nobody wants to marry you and all your engagements failed,” Ludwig said.
Ophelia raised her hand and started the movement to slap Ludwig in the face. But Ludwig’s reflexes were faster. He had been practicing Taekwon-Do for several years, and he was 1st Dan, so a blackbelter. With a fast series of movements, he managed to ward off the slap and move away from Ophelia.
“Believe me, Matthias would also have fled away from you when he would have been straight,” Ludwig said.
“He WAS straight, you little shit. He WAS straight, but you made use of his weakness. That is what happened, nothing else. Du kleine Schwuchtel hast ihn ausgenutzt,” Ophelia yelled while walking towards Ludwig with her finger pointed towards him. You little chicken nugget abused him.
“Shout louder, so that the whole church can hear it. He wasn’t straight at all, otherwise he would have got the opportunity to choose his bride instead of having been married off to you,” Ludwig said sharply, and louder than he wanted. “Which in the end is the only way to get you married. I pity the next guy who gets into a scandal that his parents want to wash off by marrying him off.”
Ludwig turned around and started to walk. He wanted to get out of Ophelia’s neighbourhood as fast as possible, but Ophelia walked after him.
“In any case,” Ophelia said loudly, “Matthias will now eternally be mine. He died as my future husband.”
Ludwig halted and turned back to Ophelia. “He didn’t die as your future husband. He broke up the engagement,” Ludwig said.
“Did he tell you that? Believe me, Ludwig, he said many things in the end,” Ophelia said. “You don’t want to know what kind of things he made up. He must have made up that as well.”
“He didn’t make that up. I saw the letter,” Ludwig said.
“Well that’s something YOU are making up,” Ophelia said. “Matthias and I were still engaged when he died. He was my future husband, and now he will be my future husband for ever. Whatever the two of you had, it will be forgotten by history.”
“And now he will be remembered in a way he would never have wanted to be remembered,” Ludwig said. “You can be proud of yourself. You are no longer the woman who was spurned three times. You were about to become the woman who was spurned four times, but now you are the woman who mourns for her deceased lover.”
“Do you know what you are, you little twat?” Ophelia said. “You are nothing else but a little women hater. You envy women, because they take away the men you love.”
“No, not at all,” Ludwig said. “I am not that envious. I would even have felt sorry for you if you would have been a different kind of woman.”
Then Ludwig walked away.

 

[Rheinbund]

25 February 1956
Aurich, Helgoland (Eiffelland)

There are two large islands on the border between the Long Sea and the Kalahari Sea. Those two islands are called Helgoland and Rügen. These islands enjoy a large amount of autonomy (more than the provinces of Mainland Eiffelland), but are part of the Kingdom of Eiffelland. Defence and foreign politics are handled in Trier, the school system is the same as in Eiffelland, and in case of budget deficits the government in Trier can step in, but for the remainder the islands can do what they want.
And to a large extent they actually do what they want. Homosexual intercourse is forbidden in Helgoland, for instance. This is partly due to a more conservative interpretation of the teachings of the Catholic Church, and partly due to machismo, which is a more important factor in Helgoland than in Rügen and Mainland Eiffelland. Maybe it is even more due to machismo than to a more stringent interpretation of the teachings of the Catholic church—apart from the ban on homosexuality, sexual morale is quite loose in Helgoland, and the proportion of people who don’t know their biological fathers is quite high. But nobody cares about that, not in Mainland Eiffelland, and even less on the islands.
There is one community in Helgoland that upholds other standards of morale, though. 500,000 of the 2.5 million inhabitants of Helgoland are Jews. Not orthodox enough to let their hair or beard grow, but orthodox enough to uphold all other Jewish traditions, including the principle “no sex before marriage”. And they always marry within their own group. Both the Jews and the other Helgolanders live their own lives, but that works out without any problems.
The Jews have managed to keep themselves unmixed throughout the centuries, but the other Helgolanders are a mixture of all kinds of people passing the Long Sea; Gallians, people from Touyou, Varanasians, Slavics, people from all parts of Northern Hymiar, but of course for a large part Germanics, simply because the island has been part of a Germanic country for a long time.
Rügen has 1.5 million inhabitants, and is situated about 100 km north of Helgoland. Its population is also a mixture of all the kinds of people traveling through the Long Sea, but here the Germanics and the Slavics form a much larger part of the genetic pool. In terms of mentality, Rügen is a mixture of Helgoland and Mainland Eiffelland. Also here the sexual morale is quite relaxed (in fact more relaxed than in Mainland Eiffelland), and also here machismo is a more important factor than in Mainland Eiffelland. However, Rügen has the same legislation regarding homosexuality as Mainland Eiffelland: Allowed from age 18 years onwards. This despite the fact that homosexuality is not really liked on this island, either. It is not a problem in the capital of Rügen (Bergen) or the seaport cities Lohme and Grabow, but elsewhere on the island people reject it. As a result, the gays from Rügen (and the gays from Helgoland) tend to move to Bergen, Lohme and Grabow … or to the large cities in Mainland Eiffelland.
Both islands are connected to Mainland Eiffelland by means of ferry services and air connections. Two times a day, ferries depart from Bremen to Grabow in Rügen and Wittmund in Helgoland, and of course vice-versa. Furthermore, there is a one-hour ferry service between Wittmund in Helgoland and Lohme in Rügen. On both islands, there is an airport near the capital city (Aurich in Helgoland, Bergen in Rügen) with plane connections to Bremen, Weissenfels, Trier, Ingelheim, Köln, Starnberg and several cities outside Eiffelland.

Of course both islands are protected by some detachments of the Armed Forces. Each island has a brigade of the Army (consisting of about 8,500 men), a Navy base and three Air Force bases (with 10 fighter planes each). Both Navy bases have a basic equipment of one destroyer, two frigates each and three patrol ships each. Furthermore, the Navy based two rescue helicopters, four transport helicopters and 10 fighter planes on Helgoland. All this to defend the islands.
But the Government has plans. Ambitious plans. Plans not presented to the Staatstag yet, although already been discussed with the governments of Helgoland and Rügen. In exchange of a modernisation of the airports of Aurich and Bergen as well as the foundation of a technical university in Bergen and a general university in Aurich, the governments of the islands agreed with the construction of four more air force bases (with 20 planes each); two of those air force bases would also be made fit for the B47 bomber. The construction works had already begun.

But strangely enough, that information hadn’t reached the Duke of Stolzenau, who was sitting in the plane Starnberg‑Aurich. He had some business to do in Helgoland, an island he liked, although he rejected the tendency of the Helgolanders not to plan out things. As a result, the island was less well organised than Mainland Eiffelland, and Stolzenau was annoyed about that. The same was the case in Rügen. When Stolzenau would have had his way, the islands would never have got autonomy because of the lack of organisational talent in both islands, but would have become provinces of Eiffelland instead. Indeed, the islands couldn’t have remained colonies for ever, but the Helgolanders and the Rügener clearly lacked the organisational talent to really run the islands according to Stolzenau. But that’s what you get with a Socialist as Chancellor, he used to say, referring to the fact that a government under a Socialist started preparing the autonomy during the 1930s and actually pushed it through in the 1940s. And King Heinrich even signed for it. This would never have happened under King Philipp V, and definitely not under a King who was a descendant of Lothar VII. Now it could not be turned back any more. Schleifer would have a hell of a job to teach the Islanders some organisational skills.
However, it was worth it. Especially the Helgolanders showed a kind of machismo Stolzenau liked. Maybe the Helgolanders could teach that to the Mainland Eiffellanders. Stolzenau looked through the window of the plane, saw the island approaching, and smiled an arrogant smile.

 

[Rheinbund]

4 March 1956
Mountains of the Harz
Near the border with Nichtstein

“So here Matthias escaped from his guards,” Christoph von Weizenburg said.
“Yes,” Prince Ludwig said.
It was still quite cold. The winters in Southern Eiffelland were mild, but not in Northern Eiffelland. Especially not high up in the mountains. Higher up North, around Innsbruck and Salzburg, there were skiing areas, but the mountains around Villach were too rough for that. Now they were covered with a thick layer of snow, which had fallen about a week ago. The crocuses were close to thriving out in Weissenfels, where Ludwig studied, but here it was still winter. Despite the fact that the sun was shining, it was still freezing.
Yesterday evening Ludwig had driven up North to visit his friend Christoph, who was serving the civil service part of his society service in Villach after having served the military part of his society service as an Army Lieutenant of the mountain regiments of the First Army. Ludwig had also taken Christoph’s boyfriend Bastian Holzbrenner with him. They had arrived at 2 o’ clock in the morning, and had gone to bed immediately. Today it was Christoph’s birthday. It would be celebrated this weekend. That was the reason why Ludwig and Bastian had already driven up North, also to be able to help with the preparations. Some more friends and Christoph’s sister and cousins would arrive this day in the evening.

It was Christoph’s idea to go to the place where Matthias had died. They would be back on time before the other people would arrive. While driving the road the van of the clinic had driven 10 weeks earlier, Ludwig stopped at the place where Matthias was said to have escaped from his guards.
“And the police dogs couldn’t find the trace from here,” Christoph said.
“How easy would that have been? Maybe it snowed again after Matthias escaped,” Bastian said.
“Well, actually, it didn’t,” Ludwig said. “There wasn’t even any wind. Of course I don’t know what happens to smell traces in the snow, but they were definitely not covered. However, there are other things that are definitely strange. For instance, he was found in his strait jacket.”
“In his strait jacket?” Bastian asked.
“Yes,” Ludwig said. “And that makes it strange. First of all, if he was really so wild that he had to wear a strait jacket, why didn’t they give him tranquillizers then? Furthermore, if a patient is so dangerous, why do you let him pee outside? And then, how do you let a man wearing a strait jacket pee? You will have to help him in a somewhat awkward way, if you know what I mean. But the most important thing is, that somebody is quite hampered in his running when his arms are tied to his body. I don’t think he could escape from his guards.”
“So you think they let him escape?” Christoph aksed.
“Maybe yes,” Ludwig said. “But that’s another funny thing. There was no other foot trace than three traces to a tree and back.”
“Maybe he ran over the asphalt,” Christoph said.
“But then the guards could have simply caught him by getting into their van and driving after him,” Ludwig said.
“Maybe he ran back into the forest a bit further up high or down,” Bastian said.
“But why didn’t the guards tell so if that happened?” Ludwig asked. “They explicitly said that they lost Matthias here.”
“But what are you suggesting, Ludwig?” Bastian asked.
“I think this wasn’t an accident. I think the guards let him escape on purpose,” Ludwig said.
“But why? The risk would be too high that he would survive it,” Christoph said. “And then he would have told his story to the public. It wouldn’t be logical to let him go. The reason why his family locked him up in a nerve clinic was that they wanted to take him out of society. Then you don’t take the risk that he returns.”
“Exactly,” Ludwig said. “But that is not everything. Let’s go to the place where Matthias was found.”
“Where is that?” Christoph asked.
“Twenty kilometers, that way,” Ludwig said, pointing at the direction that went up the mountain.
All three got into Ludwig’s Borschel 356. Christoph seated himself on the back seat of the car. He was the shortest one of the three guys with his 1.73 meters height. Ludwig and Bastian were both 8 centimeters taller.
Ludwig started the engine, and drove the car 20 kilometers furhter. Then he parked at a breakdown parking lot cut out of the mountain. All got out of the car. Then Ludwig led them 100 meters down the road.
“This is the place where Matthias was found,” Ludwig said. “Well, actually, not here, but over the edge in the ravine. Twenty kilometers away from the place where he was gone missing. Twenty kilometers up the mountain. And that leads to the next question: Why didn’t he walk down?”
“It is a lot of questions you ask,” Christoph said.
“I know,” Ludwig said. “And indeed, there is a pitfall for me. I am extremely angry at the Stolzenaus and the Luckenwaldes, and that anger could feed my suspicion that in fact they killed Matthias. But the main problem in this all is the fact that the investigations were carried out sloppily.”
“How do you know that?” Bastian asked.
“One of the police officers who was involved in the investigations told me about it. He was also the one who told me everything I just told you. Officially the investigations resulted in nothing, but a lot of things this police officer told me weren’t reported. The fact that Matthias was found in a strait jacket was mentioned in the obduction report, but nobody started to think. The police officer who talked to me did start to think, but was blocked by his superior.”
“But what’s going to happen now?” Christoph asked.
“Nothing,” Ludwig said. “First of all, I cannot prove anything. It will be the officer’s word against his superior’s word. So I won’t do anything. I will hate the Luckenwaldes and the Stolzenaus for the rest of my life, but I will also make sure that I will go on living. If I don’t, if I allow the past to control my future, the Luckenwaldes and the Stolzenaus will win another time. Apart from that, the officer who talked to me died a few weeks ago. He was killed while the tram he was sitting in was robbed.”
Christoph and Bastian looked at Ludwig.
“That sounds a bit suspicious,” Christoph said.
“Maybe,” Ludwig said. “But let’s not go there. It is good to be alert, but when we see conspiracies all around us, our lives will be controlled by those conspiracies. That is not good, either.”

Like all large cities in Eiffelland, Villach had a good night life. The Eiffellandians generally did not drink very much, but did like to go out. Also Christoph and his friends went out this night. They had a lot of fun together, but later that night the important questions were asked. Such as …

“Do you miss Matthias?”
Ludwig’s face became sad. Extremely sad.
“Yes, I do. I miss him very much. He was the love of my life. I really have the feeling that we were made for each other. I am continuously thinking about how it could have been with him on my side, but he is not there,” Ludwig said.
“Poor you,” Bastian said.

The night before, Ludwig had insisted on laying his matress in the kitchen and sleeping there instead of on the ground in Christoph’s room. Christoph and Bastian could say what they want, but Ludwig laid his matress in the kitchen. It was not that he wanted to sleep alone, but he wanted to allow Christoph and Bastian a night together.


6 March 1956

Also yesterday night everybody had gone out. The whole group arrived at Christoph’s dorm at 5 a.m and went to bed immediately.

After breakfast (which was actually a lunch), everybody went into town shortly, but then Ludwig and Bastian had to drive back. It would take Ludwig eight hours to drive to Weisenfels, also because he had to take Bastian to Trier.

Ludwig’s Borschel was a gift he received for his 18th birthday, five years ago. It was a well-maintained car with relatively few kilometers on the counter. Ludwig took a lot of care of it. In exchange, he didn’t spare it on the motorway. The car was one of the last 356s with a splitted front window, and had a top speed of 180 km/h. Whenever possible, Ludwig actually drove that speed. Also this time, when he drove back to the South.
The motorway from Villach to Starnberg, which Ludwig took until he would get on the large motorway to Köln, Ingelheim, Trier and Weissenfels, is a two-lane motorway that still perfectly fitted the need. The traffic was quite busy on this Sunday afternoon though. It was not possible to drive fast. At a certain moment, Ludwig gave room for an old large Raimer behind him to pass him. A few minutes later, the reason why it was so busy became more or less clear when many people took an exit to a village where there was some festivity. The road was clear again, so Ludwig pushed the pedal down.

But it would have been better if he would not have done so. About 10 kilometers further, there was another exit. An exit an old Raimer was taking while Ludwig was approaching him. But suddenly, a few seconds before Ludwig would pass him, the Raimer turned left. Ludwig frightened up, pressed the break pedal down and turned the steering wheel to the left. The Borschel started to slip. Ludwig pressed the clutch, focused his eyes on the hole between the Raimer and the crash barrier, turned the steering wheel to the right, loosened the clutch and pressed the gas pedal down. He managed to miss the Raimer by a few millimeters. Then he pressed and loosened the clutch and the gas pedal again a few times while turning the steering wheel left and right, and managed to miss the crash barrier as well. A few seconds later, he had the car in control again.
“Verdammte Scheisse,” Bastian said on the passenger seat, with a peeping voice.
“Meine Güte, was hatte der vor?” Ludwig said. My goodness, what was he up to?

Ludwig decided to stop the car on the hard shoulder and find out about the other car. But that other car just drove further, as if nothing had happened. Ludwig looked at the car, shaked his head and got in again.
“Sorry, Bastian,” he said.
Bastian was still shaking for fear. He didn’t say anything. His face was pale. Ludwig was also frightened up, but he had the luck that he had undergone a special driving course because of his ancestry. He had already trained such a situation. However, he was still frightened up after this trained event occurred in real life. He decided to drive to the nearest road restaurant and drink something there. The trip back home would last a bit longer than expected.

Ludwig wasn’t aware of it that this wasn’t a near accident but an assault that should have looked like an accident, should it have succeeded. Ludwig knew some things the Duke of Stolzenau didn’t want him to know, something a police officer already died for. And Ludwig had insulted the daughter of the Duke of Stolzenau.

 

[Rheinbund]

12 April 1956
Province Emsland, Eiffelland

The “

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” problem had been solved. Both the Luftgeist and the Wassergeist had been modified to overcome this problem. Today the modified planes would be tested to find out if the modifications had helped.
Today was an important day for other reasons as well. Both air force generals Franz Schablonski and Ludz Rädermacher had arrived to witness the tests. Of course they had an entourage with them. Furthermore, Minister for Defence Ralf Clausewitz and Vice-Chancellor Kögler also had arrived at the testing facility.
What they saw was a successful test. The unstart problem had been solved. Originally the engineers had expected to need some years to solve it, but the case appeared to be easier than expected.

“Congratulations, gentlemen,” General Rädermacher said.
“Thank you, Herr General,” Tobias Dassau, chairman of Dassau Flugzeugwerke, said. Originally, he was a physicist and an engineer, and built his first aeroplane in 1905. Then he grounded Dassau Flugzeugwerke in 1910, with borrowed capital and money from the State of Eiffelland and the Royal Family. Meanwhile, he was 75 years of age, but he still leaded the company, although he was considering to step down in favour of his youngest son, who was far more a business man than his other sons. He still owned 55% of the company, while the Government and the Royal Family were the other shareholders, with veto rights for the Government regarding deliveries to other countries. The Dassau family, the Government and the Royal Family were not allowed to sell their shares, simply because Dassau Flugzeugwerke was strategically important to the country.
“And especially congratulations to you, Herr Heinschel,” General Schablonski said to the engineer who leaded the project.
“Thank you, Herr General,” Heinschel said.
“But watching the tests are not the only reason why we are here,” General Rädermacher said. “We need to discuss an important matter. Let’s go to the secret meeting room.”

In the basements of the main building of the test facility, there was a room that could not be bugged from outside. No radio signals could enter the room, and no radio signals could leave the room. There was a separate oxygen supply system, so that even the airshafts could be closed. The only way to bug the room would be installing a recording device before a meeting and removing it afterwards. Therefore, it was the duty of the people using the room to check for any such devices. Also the generals Schablonski and Rädermacher, the Ministers Kögler and Clausewitz, and Dassau and Heinschel did so. Then everybody seated themselves.

Kögler looked at the people in the room. Dassau was clearly a man in his seventies, with his white hair and his wrinkles, but his eyes still showed the same strength and clearness as fifty years ago. He was a tall and lanky man, and clearly the patriarch of the Dassau family. His oldest son died in a car accident many years ago, and his second son suffered from a mental disability. So now his youngest son Thorsten was destined to lead the company in the future.
Heinschel had different looks than his highest boss. He was shorter and more musculous. He was a man in his late fourties, who was partly bald and partly graying. He used to be a very good tennis player, and was regional amateur champion several times. He didn’t reach that level any more, but he was still a good tennis player. But most importantly, he was an excellent engineer. He leaded the design department of Dassau Flugzeugwerke.
In countries like Kadikistan, generals would carry an enormous heap of glittering metal on their chests. But not necessarily in Eiffelland. Here medals were only given when somebody really deserved one. Furthermore, medals were only worn at gala‑uniforms, morning‑coats, tuxedos, dress‑suits or (for women) gala‑dresses. As a result, the chests of the two air force generals were not covered with medals. They wore their standard grey uniforms with four stars on the lapels of their jackets, and their officer caps.
Ralf Clausewitz used to be an officer in the Land Army before he became Minister for Defence. Five years ago, at age 55, he retired from the Army, as was the normal rule in the Eiffellandian Armed Forces. He left the army with the rank of Colonel. Three years after that, he was asked by Rudolph Kögler to join the cabinet as Minister for Defence.
Kögler himself was the political leader of the market liberal FDV. He became Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1950, after early elections due to the fall of the Cabinet Jörgens. His father was killed by Communists when he was 14 years old, something that turned him into a rabiate anticommunist for the rest of his life.

“Well, gentlemen, the problem is the following,” Kögler started the meeting. “At this moment, we, i.e. the country of Eiffelland, currently have the fastest plane on the market: The Mysterium II. Up to now, the only serious competitor we had was the Ivernish Aod Mór. It remains to be seen if that company will be able to recuperate from the Ivernish Civil war, but at this moment, we do not really have a serious competitor. However, that may change in the near future. We already know that Kadikistan is interested in building up an air force. I think we can be quite certain that they already gathered some knowledge about modern fighter planes in whichever ways. We also think that Kadikistan will start building planes like at least the J29, but maybe even like the Mysterium I or II, already this year, and that it will have a plane like the Wassergeist before the end of the decade. I want us to have such a plane before the Kadikistani have one. Is it in any way possible to introduce the Luftgeist and the Wassergeist already this year or early next year?”
“Definitely not for the Luftgeist, Herr Minister,” Heinschel said. “We solved the unstart problem, but there are many other things we are investigating. “Then he described everything that still needed to be investigated, and concluded his plea with: ”Please be aware that we are trying to design a plane for the next decade here. We are not ready yet. I strongly advice against advancing the introduction of the Luftgeist.”
“I totally agree with my engineer, Herr Minister,” Dassau said. “We cannot advance the introduction of the Luftgeist. However, I understand the problem you describe. I agree with your view that the Kadikistani are working on an air force. I also agree with your view that they will not start with a double deck propeller plane. They will start with jet engines, and partly by own research partly by stealing plans from either us or Aod Mór, they will enhance their designs and will end up with state‑of‑the‑art planes as well. We can’t afford ourselves to be arrogant about our technical achievements so far. Herr Heinschel, I recall that once you told me that the Wassergeist is closer to a possible introduction on the market than the Luftgeist. Can you tell us more about that?”
“As it is now, the Wassergeist is a plane that can do miracles in the right hands. It is also a plane that can take off and land on the Kaiser Lothar I. But I also have to say that is not an easy plane to handle. It is rather unforgiving, and the landing procedure on the Kaiser Lothar will be complex,” Heinschel said.
“With all due respect, gentlemen, then I would suggest that the plane is not ready yet,” Kögler said.
“I understand your reaction. However, the demands to this plane are high. The order was to build a plane that can fly Mach 2 and can land on and take off from the Kaiser Lothar I. That is difficult. Basicly, the J24 and J29 planes are the same planes as the propeller planes before them, only with a jet engine. The Mysterium planes are already different planes, but also those designs cannot reach Mach 2. A completely new form was needed. That became the Luftgeist (which is not suitable for use from a carrier) and the Wassergeist,” Heinschel said.
“But still we don’t have a plane that we can introduce,” Kögler said.
“It depends on how you look at it,” General Schablonski said. “Mr. Heinschel said that, despite the fact that the Wassergeist is rather unforgiving, an experienced pilot can do miracles with it. As it stands now, this plane will be excellent in dog fights, i.e. close combat with other fighter planes. It will also be capable of doing many other things. This plane is excellent; it only needs a very experienced pilot. We all agree that we need to introduce a fast plane before the Kadikistani do it. The only option we have, is introducing this plane and make sure that only the best pilots fly with it. I don’t know if there are plans for replacing the Kaiser Lothar I, but I think it would be better to go for a larger aircraft carrier anyway.”
“By the way, we do realise that we cannot continue making planes only for the most experienced pilots. Therefore, we will continue modifying the Luftgeist. And that is also the reason why we don’t want to introduce it right now,” Dassau said. “I can also announce that we are already working on the successor of the Wassergeist. As it stands now, we can introduce that successor at the beginning of the next decade, together with the Luftgeist.”
“Minister Clausewitz, what do you think?” Kögler said.
“I agree with the generals, Herr Vizekanzler,” Clausewitz said. “Basicly, Mr. Dassau and Mr. Heinschel say that they have an excellent plane if it is flown by excellent pilots. For a short term solution, we can very well go for the Wassergeist as it is now. Its successor will be easier to handle anyway.”
“OK, then let’s put it forward in the Ministerrat this Friday,” Kögler said.
“By the way, for marketing reasons, I think we will go for a different name for the Wassergeist, so that we can reserve this name for its successor. It sounds better when we introduce the Luftgeist and the Wassergeist together,” Dassau said. “Let’s call it the Mysterium III.”

Four days later, the Cabinet decided to approve the introduction of the Mysterium III. Some more days later, Dassau indicated that the Mysterium III would be rebaptised again: It would be called the Sturmvogel (petrel).

OOC: This is what my future planes will be:
Old Wassergeist / Mysterium III / Sturmvogel:

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.
Luftgeist:

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.
New Wassergeist:

You must be registered for see links

.

 

[Rheinbund]

23 May 1956

The new air force bases were ready. At least unofficially. Parliament would be notified later on. But before that would happen, the Air Force would already start to use the bases. A total of 90 fighters additional to the 60 fighters already stationed at the islands would be operated from these bases. Also the B47 could land on the islands, but that plane would not be stationed on the islands by default. Maybe during war time if needed, but not by default. Actually, it was not the intention to station bombers at the islands at all. The kind of operations to be carried out by the Air Force groups at the islands would mainly consist of air superiority fighting, and of precision bombing operations against for instance naval assets. Luckily, the Mysterium-planes and the J29 could fulfil these roles. All the fighter planes together would form the Jagdbombergeschwader Rügen, Helgoland-Nord and Helgoland-süd.
It was the intention of the Cabinet to place the international community before accomplished facts. Therefore, the decision to build new air force bases at Rügen and Helgoland had not been brought before Parliament yet. That would not happen before the air force bases would be populated though. And that was a process that would start today. The first two squadrons took off from Mainland Eiffelland to their new bases on the islands. One-by-one the planes flew from the Mainland to the islands. Tomorrow the next two squadrons would follow (also one-by-one), and as soon as all planes had been moved, the bill for the new air force bases would go to Parliament, together with bills to open a technical and a general university at the islands. It remained to be seen how long this action would remain unseen by the international community, but a plan B was ready. As soon as the media would get wind from the action, the move of the planes would be accelerated.
The move of the planes was accompanied by a reorganisation of the air force at the islands. From the 1st of June onwards, all the planes from the Air Force stationed at the islands would fall under one Air Force Wing: The Lufstreitkräftedivision Helgoland-Rügen.

 

[Rheinbund]

05 Jun 1956

The new air force bases were ready. At least unofficially. Parliament would be notified later on. But before that would happen, the Air Force would already start to use the bases. A total of 90 fighters additional to the 60 fighters already stationed at the islands would be operated from these bases. Also the B47 could land on the islands, but that plane would not be stationed on the islands by default. Maybe during war time if needed, but not by default. Actually, it was not the intention to station bombers at the islands at all. The kind of operations to be carried out by the Air Force groups at the islands would mainly consist of air superiority fighting, and of precision bombing operations against for instance naval assets. Luckily, the Mysterium-planes and the J29 could fulfil these roles. All the fighter planes together would form the Jagdbombergeschwader Rügen, Helgoland-Nord and Helgoland-süd.
It was the intention of the Cabinet to place the international community before accomplished facts. Therefore, the decision to build new air force bases at Rügen and Helgoland had not been brought before Parliament yet. That would not happen before the air force bases would be populated though. And that was a process that would start today. The first two squadrons took off from Mainland Eiffelland to their new bases on the islands. One-by-one the planes flew from the Mainland to the islands. Tomorrow the next two squadrons would follow (also one-by-one), and as soon as all planes had been moved, the bill for the new air force bases would go to Parliament, together with bills to open a technical and a general university at the islands. It remained to be seen how long this action would remain unseen by the international community, but a plan B was ready. As soon as the media would get wind from the action, the move of the planes would be accelerated.
The move of the planes was accompanied by a reorganisation of the air force at the islands. From the 1st of June onwards, all the planes from the Air Force stationed at the islands would fall under one Air Force Wing: The Lufstreitkräftedivision Helgoland-Rügen.

Saul Eisenstein was a man in his seventies who still ran a small grocery shop in Varel, Helgoland’s southernmost harbour city. He was a member of the Jewish community. Today was a Sunday, but Eisenstein could keep his shop open. The obligatory shop closure on Sunday did not apply to Jewish shop owners. Instead, their shops were closed on the Shabbat. But that didn’t mean reduced revenues for the Jewish shop owners. Even better, non-Jewish Eiffellandians shopped at the Jewish shops on the Sundays and enjoyed it.
Saul Eisenstein was a man on his own. His wife was in a nursery home, and he lost his only daughter years ago in a train crash, taking away not only his daughter but also her husband and children. As a result, he was left without a successor. There was no nephew or niece available to take over the shop. Eisenstein would either have to sell it or close it when he would not be able to continue it any more.
Now it was six ‘o clock. Time to close the shop for today and do some book-keeping. Then Eisenstein would make himself some food and would go to the nursery home to visit his wife. Still she recognised him, but Eisenstein was worried about when that would stop. A few hours later, he walked to the nursery home via an abandoned part of the harbour. During heavy storms, the low quays here were oftne flooded. Today they were not, but it was flood. The water was quite high. And maybe that was why he saw the body floating in the water.

 

[Rheinbund]

12 July 1956
Helgoland, Eiffelland

Im Wald, im grünen Walde,
Da steht ein Försterhaus.
Da schauet jeden Morgen,
So frisch und frei von Sorgen,
Des Försters Töchterlein heraus,
Des Försters Töchterlein heraus.

Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Schön sind die Mädchen
Von siebzehn, achtzehn Jahr.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Schöne Mädchen gibt es überall.
Und kommt der Frühling in das Tal,
Grüsst mir die Lore noch einmal,
Ade, ade, adeeheehee,
Adeeeeeee, ade, ade, ade.

The student song sounded loudly over the beach. It was the class 1955 of the Weissenfelser fraternity WSC Odysseus. Eiffellandian fraternities traditionally named themselves after important people in the Pelasgian or Tiburan history. This because Latin and Old-Pelasgian had been the most important scientific languages for two millennia, and were still important when the fraternities were formed. These names also referred to the fact that Tiburan and Pelasgian mythology was an important part of the school curriculum at the Gymnasia (the school art that educated for University, also in present-day Eiffelland) as part of the education in Latin.
Eiffelland had quite a lot of fraternities in the university cities, each with their own particular traditions, their own particular berets and their own particular colours, which were printed on the ribbons their members wore. The candidate-members (called Füchse (foxes)) wore their ribbons from the left shoulder to the right waist, full members from the right shoulder to the left waist. There was also someone who wore two ribbons; this was the Fuchsmajor. He was responsible for educating the Füchse to full-fledged members, meaning that he had to educate the Füchse about the specific traditions of the fraternity. Each fraternity had 100 to 150 members, and as a result 15 to 30 Füchse. As a result, there were often also several Fuchsmajore. When a member absolved his studies, his membership ended, but he still kept his ties to the fraternity as an ex-member.
As a tradition, new candidate-members of a fraternity were ragged for a week as part of the initiation rites before they gained Fuchs-status. In the past, that ragging went quite badly, but after some incidents where freshmen even lost their lives, the fraternities were forced to tone down the ragging quite a lot. Since then, drinking games and other rites that could endanger health or live were forbidden. It was also forbidden to force Füchse to drink alcohol, take off all their clothes or visit prostitutes, or to use rotting substances, offal, or poisonous or burning substances during the initiation rites. Of course applying physical violence to the new members was forbidden as well, but physical violence was something that was seriously frowned upon among Eiffellandian students—according to them, someone who became physically violent was someone who could not accept that he lost the debate and therefore tried to impose his opinion or will against the outcome of the debate. Training for and competing in martial arts was a different story though, as long as it was not boxing, which was considered a bit primitive by Eiffellandian students.

Der Förster und die Tochter,
Die schossen beide gut.
Der Förster schoß das Hirschlein,
Die Tochter traf das Bürschlein
Tief in das junge Herz hinein.
Tief in das junge Herz hinein.

Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Schön sind die Mädchen
Von siebzehn, achtzehn Jahr.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Schöne Mädchen gibt es überall
Und kommt der Frühling in das Tal,
Grüsst mir die Lore noch einmal,
Ade, ade, adeeheehee,
Adeeeeeee, ade, ade, ade.

When the later King Heinrich started to study in Weissenfels, he broke with the tradition that male members of Eiffellandian noble families went to military academies to become officers. But he also started a tradition: Since then, all the children from the Eiffellandian noble families went to Weissenfels to study. It is unknown up to now why the later King Heinrich chose for Weissenfels instead of Trier to study, even when taking into account that Weissenfels plays an important role in the history of Eiffelland as among others the city where the Eiffellandian Kings are crowned. After him, his children and his grandchildren went to Weissenfels to study. The only exception was Prince Johann, but he may be the first one in the Royal Family who consciously and voluntarily chose a career in the Armed Forces.
WSC Odysseus was quite a conservative fraternity where the Catholic Faith played an important role. Maybe that was the reason why Heinrich chose that fraternity, instilling another new tradition. After him, all members of the Royal Family became members of WSC Odysseus. The decision of the current King Albrecht to sign the laws legalising homosexuality in Mainland Eiffelland and Rügen was, therefore, frowned upon within WSC Odysseus. But never officially.
When Prince Ludwig went to Weissenfels to study, he was quite hesitant about joining WSC Odysseus, because he expected that he would not fit in. But he joined anyway, out of family pressure, to find out that his expectations came true. Eiffellandians, especially Mainland Eiffellandians, were not known for their machismo and for bragging, but Odyssans generally bragged a lot about the girls they got. And that bragging created an athmosphere Ludwig didn’t like. He knew that based on his looks he would be able to get more girls than all the other guys in his year together, but apart from the fact that he was gay (which was unknown within the fraternity, although some people may have heard some rumours), he refused to prove his manliness in that way. That must have been a problem to his older brothers Friedrich and Wolfgang as well, who just like Ludwig needed to be in love before they could make love, but one way or another they could cope with it. Maybe because they, unlike Ludwig, did not have anything to hide.

Steh' ich auf Bergeshöhen,
Schau über Täler hin,
Dann sehe ich so gerne
Aus weiter Ferne,
Das Haus der jungen Försterin.
Das Haus der jungen Försterin.

Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Schön sind die Mädchen
Von siebzehn, achtzehn Jahr.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Schöne Mädchen gibt es überall
Und kommt der Frühling in das Tal,
Grüsst mir die Lore noch einmal,
Ade, ade, adeeheehee,
Adeeeeeee, ade, ade, ade.

After the university year was over, the students usually took a one week holiday before either taking up their summer jobs. Students who didn’t need summer jobs to finance their studies took a two weeks holiday before joining their families. For first-year students from fraternities, it was tradition that they took these summer holidays together. Given the fact that the members of WSC Odysseus were from rich families as a result of the policy regarding the admittance of aspirant-members, this summer holiday lasted two weeks. The destination was always either Rügen or Helgoland or one of the Nichtsteiner or Pelasgian islands. This year it was Helgoland.

Sexual morale was loose in the Eiffellandian Long Sea island of Helgoland. As a result, almost everyone of year 1955 of WSC Odysseus had made love to one or more Helgolander girls. This had already led to some tensions with some Helgolanders, especially with two guys who wanted to take revenge on two students for having slept with their girlfriends. Luckily Ludwig managed to calm the situation down, although he moaned afterwards: “How nice. Now I have to defend you against two angry boyfriends, while I left the honour of the local girls unharmed.”

Like many other nights, the party started on the beach, with beer, white wine and booze in the cool boxes. But it was not solely a student party any more. Also some young Helgolanders joined. That went without any problems, although like a typically Eiffellandian habit everybody sticked to their own booze supplies. The party went on and on, until Ludwig asked one of his mates “hey, where is Franz?” and suddenly an enormous screaming was heard, in the dune plants 100 meters away from the party. Ludwig and about 10 other people rushed towards the bushes, There they saw two guys beating up two other guys. The two other guys were naked.
Ludwig screamed “stop it”, saw himself ignored, and showed his Taekwon‑do skills by kicking the two attackers to the ground. Then he saw that one of the naked guys was his year mate Franz. He didn’t show his surprisedness, but simply said with a face as neutral as could be: “OK, get dressed, then we discuss this further.”
“What do you want to discuss, pretty boy?” one of the Helgolanders asked. “Your friend just raped my brother, there is nothing to discuss here.”
“What? This wasn’t rape!” Franz screamed while dressing himself.
“Well, if it wasn’t rape, what was it? Love? Maybe you sissy guys from the mainland do it to each other, but not us Helgolanders. We only do it to women.”
“Well, apparently not good enough. Otherwise the Helgolander women would ignore us,” one of the students screamed.
That was the starting shot for a massive fist fight, which ended 10 seconds later when somebody shot in the air with a gun and shouted with a clear Trierer accent “Königlicher Garde! Aufhör’n!”. Everybody looked up, and looked four men armed with guns into the face.
“Verdammt,” one of the Helgolanders said.
“Königlicher Garde? Here?” another one asked.
“Ludwig von Dietz-Hadamar, Prince of Eiffelland, to serve you,” Ludwig said.
“What? You? A Prince?” the guy who called Ludwig “Pretty boy” just a minute ago asked.
“Yes,” Ludwig said.
Then one of the guards said: “OK. Everybody goes home now. When needed, we’ll discuss this out later.”
“But where is Franz?” one of the students asked.
“But where is Mirko?” one of the Helgolanders asked at the same time.

“Verdammte Scheisse! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Franz asked while sitting behind the wheel of one of the DW Transporters the group had rented. Mirko had just told him that homosexuality was illegal in Helgoland. They were driving to Mirko’s house to get his belongings.
“How could I know we would be discovered?” Mirko asked back. “Do you know how many gays there are on this island? And do you really think they all go to Rügen or the mainland to make love? Maybe it isn’t allowed, but there happens a lot in the bushes of Helgoland when the police aren’t looking. There wasn’t any police anywhere in the neighbourhood tonight, and we did everything we could to remain undiscovered. It was a freaking coincidence that those two guys decided to pee at exactly the same location as we were making love.”
“But do you really think I am waiting for legal problems? Having to flee for an angry mob is something else than having to flee for the police,” Franz said.
“Would you have started with me when you would have known this?” Mirko said.
“I would have taken you to Rügen and rented something over there until the end of the holiday,” Franz said. “That would at least have spared us the legal problems. But now we both have a problem. Maybe they won’t let us off the island now. And don’t think you will only have problems with your family. What we did is legal in Rügen and the mainland, but my family will explode if it appears that the son and heir is a homosexual. The first thing they’ll do is arrange a marriage, and not with a nice girl, but with a girl that is currently considered unmarriable. Those girls are not only ugly, but also also extremely dull, extremely dumb or extremely mean. This is the end of my life.”
“You can refuse such an arranged marriage, can’t you? Here right, and then the tenth house to the left.”
Franz turned the Transporter to the right into a small street, drove until Mirko’s house, parked and turned off the engine.
“Indeed, I can refuse an arranged marriage, but then I’ll be scratched off the family tree, if you know what I mean,” he said.
“No, not really,” Mirko said.
“I will cease to exist for my family then. My parents won’t consider me their son any more, my grandparents won’t consider me their grandson any more, my uncles, aunts, cousins and so on won’t consider me a family member any more. They will act as if I have never existed, and they will act as if they don’t know me,” Franz said. After a pause, he continued. “OK. Get your belongings. Let’s try to get off this island.”

Mirko opened the front door as silently as he could, and walked up the stairs as silently as he could. He opened the door of his room went inside and closed the door again. Then a hand grabbed his arm while he was reaching out for the light switch. He frightened up and screamed. The light was turned on. Then Mirko saw into the face of his father.
“What happened on the beach?” Mirko’s father asked angriy.
“Huh?” Mirko asked.
“What-happened-on-the beach, I asked!” Mirko’s father said angrily.
“We were just partying!” Mirko said.
“And then you come back without Paul and sneak into the house with your shoes in your hands,” his father said angrily. “What-happened-on-the beach?”
“Just partying, I just said so!” Mirko screamed.
“You’re lying!” his father said angrily and smashed Mirko in the face. “Paul phoned. I know that you were fucking with a guy.” And he smashed Mirko in the face once again. Then he took a rolled‑up belt out of his pocket and hit Mirko a few times with the belt. Mirko screamed for pain.
“I know why you went to the mainland to serve in the army there. There there are units especially for gays, and you applied for such a unit.” Snap! “AU!!” “Fine! Then go to the mainland and fuck with guys over there!” Snap! “AU!!” “But then stay there, and don’t come back unless you want to marry a girl!” Snap! “AU!!” “And I will tell you what happened on the beach! It was a rape!” Snap! “AU!!” “That mainlander raped you, and that is what you are going to tell the police!” Snap! “AU!!” “You are not going to bring shame upon the family by admitting that you wanted this!” Snap! “AU!!” “Understood?” Mirko was near his pedestal now. He quickly grabbed his alarm clock and threw it towards his father, who managed to duck. The alarm clock broke to pieces against the wall. Mirko managed to get up, kick his father in the balls and then hit him in the face. His father collapsed and fell to the floor. This gave Mirko some time to quickly put some clothes into a bag. Then he looked into his mother’s face.
“What did you do?!” she screamed.
“He hit me with a belt!” he screamed back. “He was about to kill me, God damnit!”
Then his father, who had regained consciousness, grabbed him in his hair.
“So I was about to kill you? That was nothing!” he said angrily, dragged Mirko to the floor and kicked him against his chest.

Franz had turned down the window of the Transporter. Mirko’s screams for pain were heard on the street. As soon as he heard that, he jumped out of the Transporter and ran to the front door of Mirko’s house.
“MAINLANDER!!”
Franz turned around. It was Mirko’s brother, flanked by four of his friends.
“That’s my father, kicking the hell out of Mirko in such a way that he won’t be able to leave the house without help,” he said with an evil grin on his face.
“And you let that happen?!” Franz screamed. He ran to the front door, but Mirko’s brother was faster. He grabbed him in his clothes and pulled him away, into the arms of his four friends. They held Franz in such a way that he was an easy target for Mirko’s brother, who punched him in his stomach, then in his face, and finally kicked him in the balls.
“Now you listen to me. You drive away from here and leave the island as soon as you can, together with your friends, or we’ll beat you and Mirko to death and tell the police that Mirko died of the injuries he got from you, and that we killed you by accident while trying to defend Mirko against you,” Mirko’s brother said.
“And they’re gonna believe that?” Franz screamed.
“There is nothing else they can believe,” Mirko’s brother said. “And actually you have no choice. Well, you have a choice: Either we take you into the house to beat you to death, together with Mirko, or we put you into your nice Transporter.”
“Then put me into my nice Transporter,” Franz said.
“Good choice, Mainlander,” Mirko’s brother said.


OOC: I took the version of Die Lore that I once heard in Leuven while witnessing a cantus. English translation:

In the forest, in the green forest,
There is a forester's house.
Each and every morning,
So fresh and free from sorrows,
The forester's daughter looks out of the house.
The forester's daughter looks out of the house.

Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Beautiful are the girls
Aged seventeen, eighteen years.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Beautiful girls are everywhere.
And when spring comes to the valley,
The Lore will greet me again
Ade ade, adeeheehee,
Adeeeeeee, ade, ade, ade.

The forester and the daughter,
The both shot well.
The forester shot the deer,
The daughter hit the young lad
Deep into the young heart.
Deep into the young heart.

Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Beautiful are the girls
Aged seventeen, eighteen years.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Beautiful girls are everywhere.
And when spring comes to the valley,
The Lore will greet me again
Ade ade, adeeheehee,
Adeeeeeee, ade, ade, ade.

Arise I on mountain tops,
Look over valleys out
Then I see so much
From afar,
The house of the young forester.
The house of the young forester.

Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Tiralala, tiralala,
Tiraaa lala lala lala.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Beautiful are the girls
Aged seventeen, eighteen years.
Lore, Lore, Lore, Lore,
Beautiful girls are everywhere.
And when spring comes to the valley,
The Lore will greet me again
Ade ade, adeeheehee,
Adeeeeeee, ade, ade, ade.

 

[Rheinbund]

13 July 1956
Helgoland, Eiffelland

The name Rosenthal was well known in Eiffelland. This was the name of a large Jewish family active in the legal branch. The family originated from the Jewish community in Helgoland, but branched out throughout Eiffelland. Members of this family became judges (sometimes even in the Hohe Staatsgericht, the highest legal court in Eiffelland), public prosecutors, university professors in law, but mainly lawyers. The Trierer branch had grounded the law firm Rosenthal Rechtsanwälte GmbH., with offices in the most important cities of the non-communist countries in the world, among others Chagny, Propontis, Naoned and Aod Móhr. A Catholic team of lawyers (not part of the family) had already been sent to Markstad to ground an office there.
Joachim Rosenthal was a descendant of the main branch of the Rosenthal family: The Helgolander branch. He was a 23-year-old law student who studied in Weissenfels due to the lack of a university in Helgoland. He was a member of a Jewish fraternity there. After his one-week holiday, he went to his parents in Helgoland to earn some money for his studies. In principle, his parents could afford to let him study (and they paid a lot for him), but he considered it better to work in parallel as well, so that he had just that little extra money to make life a bit comfortable, especially during the exam periods when he didn’t have the time to chase the markets and the shops for the cheapest alternative. So during the summer holidays, he worked at a coffee bar during the day and at a normal bar in the evening and at night. And while doing so, he also did some work for his father, who was a lawyer in the small city of Wiesmoor. Last night he had already heard about the fight on the beach. He had also heard about the reason for the fight, and he had heard that Prince Ludwig, who was one of his study friends, was involved in the fight.
But he mainly knew that the reason why that fight emerged was an explosive one on this island. Joachim didn’t mind if somebody else was gay, but he knew that it was quite a topic here. People were mobbed for it, and families expelled their children for it. It was not without reason that most Helgolander gays left the island. And then one of the guys involved was a Mainlander. Helgolanders mostly considered themselves Eiffellandians, but there was a kind of an animosity against the people from the Mainland. Normally that did not lead to problems, but it could very well be different in the case of a homosexual affair between a Mainlander and a Helgolander. It would be better if Ludwig and his fraternity friends would leave the island.

It was half an hour before closing time when 20 people seated themselves on the terrace. It were Ludwig and his fraternity friends.


17 hours before

Franz parked the Transporter in front of the house the group had rented. He turned off the engine and went inside.
“Franz, is that you?” a voice sounded out of the living room. Then he heard somebody walking into the corridor.
“I’m going to pack,” he said.
“Wait. First go inside,” he heard.
Franz walked into the living room.
“My goodness, what happened to you?” somebody asked. Franz had an enormous black spot in his face.
“I met Mirko’s brother,” Franz said.
“Don’t you have to go to the hospital?”
“No, not needed, I didn’t break anything,” Franz said. “I’m going to pack my things. I cannot stay here.”
“But where do you want to go?”
“Off the island, to Weissenfels. And I think I have to be quick. Sleeping with a guy is illegal here,” Franz said. Immediately the atmosphere became hostile.
“Franz, why did you do it? How could you be so stupid? Did you really think it would never be discovered?” one of his friends asked.
“Why did you grab those local girls?” Franz asked.
“Well, that is something completely different compared with … taking a guy,” somebody else said with clear disgust in his voice. “I don’t know if I would want you in my year now … Actually ... Maybe indeed it would be better if you left the corps. Sorry, but this is disgusting. Furthermore, we are in the front line of society. How can we represent our families, the companies we work for, Eiffelland as a whole, with a man on our side?”
“Well, eh, basically, homosexuality is not illegal in Eiffelland,” somebody else said.
“But we don’t have the same position as the common Eiffellandian. We are supposed to run the country in the future. We have to represent ourselves. At the levels we live in, we make a fool of ourselves if we present ourselves as husband and husband instead of husband and wife,” a third person said.
“And today you not only made a fool of yourself, but of us as well. Didn’t you hear what that local guy said? He insinuated that we all sleep with guys. Now suppose you are a diplomat and show up with your husband in front of an Andaluzian delegation. The Andaluzians will say the same. This is lethal,” a fourth person said.
“It would work out pretty well with a Justinian delegation though,” a fifth person joked.
“But we not only have to deal with the Justinians,” a sixth person said. “And apart from this all, this is disgusting.”
OK, this is going to await me as well, Ludwig thought. Then he said neutrally: “Guys, I don’t think this is the right time to discuss this. Everybody is emotional now, everything we will say now we will regret later. Let’s focus on what is needed now.” Given his position, he could not say “let’s focus on getting Franz off the island”, because then he would cooperate with impeding the execution of the law within the Kingdom, but that was what he was referring to.
“Yes, indeed. Can anybody drive me to the airport of Aurich? Then I will buy a ticket to get off the island there,” Franz said.
“At this hour? The airport is closed now,” somebody said.
“When needed, I will wait there until the airport is open,” Franz said.
“I will drive you,” somebody else said.


02:00

Suddenly the engine went off. Franz cursed, and steered the Transporter to the side of the road. Then he looked at the petrol meter.
“Huh? What happened?” Lorenz asked. He was sitting next to Franz, but had fallen asleep. He would drive the Transporter back.
“We’re run out of petrol,” Franz said, panicking.
“Scheisse!” Lorenz cursed.
“Verdammte Scheisse!” Franz cursed. “Nobody will pass by in the next four hours, and all the tank stations are closed now. Let’s do the following. We just passed a village. Let’s walk back there with a can, and steal some fuel out of a car there.”
“Are you crazy, Franz?!” Lorenz asked.
“I need to get off this island for Christ’s sake!” Franz said. “I’m going to steal some petrol if I can’t buy it!”
He went to the back of the Transporter, opened the upper door, and took the petrol can out of there. Then he started to walk.


03:00

Franz still lacked one essential thing to be able to get some fuel out of a car: A narrow tube. He took such a tube from the first motorcycle he saw, and then walked to a car on the other side of the road. He screwed the lid off the can he was carrying, screwed off the petrol tank of the car, put the tube into the petrol tank, sucked up some petrol at the other end of the tube, and then put that other end into his can. The petrol started to stream.
“Keine Bewegung!!!” Don’t move
Franz frightened up.
“Polizei!! Get that tube out of that petrol tank!!”
Franz looked into the direction where the voice was coming. He looked at a police officer. Then he looked the other way, where he saw a second police officer. Then he took the tube out of the petrol tank of the car.
“Good. And now you poor the contents of your can back into the car.” Franz did as he was told.
“Good. And now you put the lid on the petrol tank.” Franz did that as well.
“Good. And now stick your arms right ahead in front of you, and you turn to me.” Franz did as he was told. The police officer clicked his handcuffs around Franz’s wrists.
“Good. You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say can be used against you. You have the right to an attorney.”


07:00

Lorenz woke up when the Transporter shook because of a truck passing by.
What? The sun has already risen? How late is it? And where is Franz? He thought. Scheisse! Now I can walk to the village as well.
He got out of the Transporter, closed it, and walked to the village as well.


12.00

The telex rattled at the police department where Franz was being kept. It read:

“Kriminalpolizeitamt Wiesmoor. Man aged 21-25 years old wanted for rape of male minor. First name Franz, last name unknown. Dark hair, dark eyes, slim.”
​

The leader of the department ripped the telex off, read it, and typed back:

“Polizeitamt Ochtersum. We arrested a young man named Franz Schenk von Bechhofen for stealing petrol tonight. Age 23 years, dark brown hair, brown eyes, slim.”
​

Two hours later, Franz was at the police department in Wiesmoor, where he was put behind a one-way mirror, and recognised by several persons who had been present at the beach party the night before.


16:00

“Rape of a minor?! What are you talking about?!” was the first thing Franz screamed at the police inspector. He didn’t understand at all. Mirko wasn’t a child, he wasn’t even an adolescent.
“Mirko Burovski is 20 years old, so strictly speaking a minor,” the police inspector said.
“So what? You wouldn’t have cared if Mirko would have been a girl!!” Franz screamed.
“But Mirko is a boy, Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen. You already know that homosexual intercourse is illegal here. On top of that, you woke up desires in a minor that could lead him off the path prescribed by nature; that’s why we consider this rape,” the police inspector said.
Waking up desires that could lead him off the path described by nature?? Is this still Eiffelland?! Franz thought.
“Furthermore, the injuries you inflicted upon him even aggravates the case. The poor boy had to be supported by his mother to get here and give his statement,” the police inspector continued.
“Did they beat him up so badly?” Franz asked.
“Who are they?” the police inspector asked.
“Mirko’s father and his brother,” Franz said.
“Did you see them doing so?” the police inspector asked.
“I took Mirko to his house last night. He wanted to get his clothes, and we wanted to leave the island,” Franz said. “I was waiting in the Transporter, but then I heard Mirko screaming. I got out of the Transporter, because I wanted to kick in the door and free Mirko, but his brother blocked me from doing so. With an enormous grin on his face, he said that his father was beating up Mirko at that moment.”
“Did you see Mirko’s father doing so?” the police inspector asked.
“No,” Mirko said.
“Mirko and his mother stated that you were beating Mirko up, and that his brother and father saved him,” the police inspector said.
Mirko said so? Franz thought.
“That’s bullshit,” Franz screamed.
“The same will be said about your story, Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen,” the police inspector said.

 

[Rheinbund]

14 July 1956
Wiesmoor, Helgoland, Eiffelland

“Homosexual intercourse? But that was legalised,” Johannes Schenk von Bechhofen said. He had taken the first plane to the island he could get, after having heard about the arrestment of his son. Now he was sitting in the office of lawyer David Rosenthal in Wiesmoor.
“It was legalised in the Mainland, and in Rügen, but not here in Helgoland,” David Rosenthal said. “Your son is not the first Mainlander who gets confronted with this internal difference in legislation within the Kingdom. Believe me, Helgoland is fundamentally different from the Mainland in this matter. Homosexuality is really frowned upon here.”
“I myself frown upon it, Mr. Rosenthal,” Schenk said. “But I want to keep my son out of prison.”
“That will be difficult, Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen,” Rosenthal said. “There are too many people who can testify that Franz had intercourse with Mirko Burovski. Franz will be convicted. I may be able to reduce the punishment, but I won’t be able to keep him out of prison. Unless the Public Prosecutor makes a procedural mistake of course.”
“So basicly Franz will go to prison,” Schenk said.
“Yes, but I will try to reduce the number of years he will remain in prison,” Rosenthal said. “And this Mirko Burovski may help us with that.”
“Why do you think so? He told the police that all this happened against his will, and even that Franz beat him up,” Schenk said.
“But Franz vehemently denies that he beat up Mirko. He also said that Mirko wanted to have intercourse with him. And I tend to believe him. So what I already did, was doing some research about Mirko Burovski. And one of my sources of information is my son. He studies law in Weissenfels, but he works in a coffee bar and in a pub here on the island during the summer holidays. And especially in the coffee bar he hears a lot of gossip. Wiesmoor is a small city. This beach fight is currently the talk of the town, so many gossips concerning Mirko are going around. My son already heard that Mirko explicitly requested to serve his military service in the Mainland instead of Helgoland. There are only very few Helgolanders who explicitly request that. The only reason why somebody does, is that he wants to get off the island. Why would he want to do that? The most important reason why Helgolanders leave the island, is homosexuality. So what I’m going to find out, is in which unit Mirko is currently serving. I may be able to make it less plausible that this intercourse took place against Mirko’s wishes if he is indeed serving in a unit for homosexuals. But there is also something else.”
David Rosenthal took a sip of his water. It could be very warm in Helgoland during summer, and this summer wasn’t an exception. Rosenthal had his windows open, because he couldn’t afford an air conditioning system, but also then it was still hot. Therefore, it was very common in Helgoland and Rügen to not only serve coffee or tea during Summer, but also water. Like in the Mainland, alcohol wasn’t served at work or when a meeting was considered work.
“What is that something else?” Schenk asked.
“Franz is also charged with severe maltreatment of Mirko. He denies that, and claims that actually it was Mirko’s father who maltreated Mirko. I believe Franz, but this will be very hard to disprove. Mirko himself claims that it was Franz, and seven other people claim the same. But there is something wrong in Mirko’s story. Several of his injuries were caused by a leather belt. A leather belt with a width that wasn’t found in Mirko’s luggage. And not in the luggage of his friends, either. Not even in the luggage of the Königlicher Garde. So where did Franz get the leather belt he supposedly hit Mirko with? He would have had to look for it. When you are in the middle of a fight, you inflict damage upon your opponent here and now. If Franz would have wanted to hit Mirko with a leather belt, he would have used the one he was wearing, and would not have searched half the city for a leather belt of a different size than he himself had. Therefore, I highly doubt that it was Franz who beat Mirko up. I don’t know who else did it, actually every Helgolander who was on the beach that night could have done it, even Mirko’s father could have done it, but it wasn’t Franz.”

Kriminalkommissar Felix Nikolopoulos had the same train of thought regarding who really beat up Mirko as Rosenthal. All evidence spoke against Franz, but he reacted in such a way that Nikolopoulos doubted whether it was really Franz. Furthermore, there was something strange in the statements by Mirko, his family and those four friends of Paul Burovski. Nikolopoulos had the same opinion on homosexuality as most people on the island, but he also found that the law had to be followed. He was definitely against the gay‑bashing that occurred quite often in Helgoland. And he also found that people should not be convicted for something they didn’t commit. He decided to discuss the matter with his team.

“Can you remember the statements they gave? And the way they gave them?” Nikolopoulos asked his team. “They all used the same phrasing. Exactly the same phrasing. That mostly indicates that they practiced it. And that means that they didn’t tell the truth; otherwise you don’t need to practice your statement.”
“But suppose that they indeed lied, how are we going to find that out?” Kriminalhauptmeister Manuel Schneider asked.
“Let me tell you what we are going to do,” Nikolopoulos said.

 

[Rheinbund]

15 July 1956
Wiesmoor, Helgoland, Eiffelland

Nikolopoulos parked his EKW in front of the house of the Burovski family, got out, locked the car and went to the front door. After he rang, Mirko’s mother opened the door.
“Good morning, Mrs. Burovski. Can I come in for a moment?” Nikolopoulos asked.
“But we already told you everything,” Mirko’s mother said.
“I have one more thing to ask, to you and to Mirko,” Nikolopoulos said. “I can’t do so on the doorstep. Can I please come in?”
Mirko’s mother let him in, and showed him into Mirko’s bedroom.
“Hallo Mirko, wie geht’s Ihnen?” Nikolopoulos asked. Despite the fact that he used Mirko’s first name, he also used the more formal Ihnen instead of dir, as per Eiffellandian customs—Mirko was still a bit young to be called “Herr Burovski”, but the more formal Sie (and in dativus Ihnen) was already used for people from 16 years of age onwards.
“Badly,” Mirko said. “Everything still hurts.”
“I feel sorry for you,” Nikolopoulos said. “It must have been really terrible. Especially given the fact that you were hit with a belt.”
He paused to see the reactions. Then he continued.
“I saw the pictures of your back, Mirko. That’s why I know that you were hit with a belt. You didn’t tell me that, by the way.”
“Would that make a difference, Mr. Nikolopoulos?” Mirko’s mother asked. “That guy beat Mirko up; we already told you. What difference does it make how and with what he beat Mirko up?”
“We need to know exactly what happened before court. That’s why I mention this,” Nikolopoulos said. “Do you by any chance remember if Franz used a leather belt to beat you up?”
It took a few seconds before Mirko’s mother answered.
“Yes. He used the leather belt that was in his short.”
Nikolopoulos had been carrying a bag with him. He grabbed into it, and took one of Franz’s belts out.
“Was it such a kind of belt?” he asked while showing it. It was a luxurious narrow leather belt.
“Yes, it was,” Mirko’s mother said.
“Thank you. That’s all I need to know,” Nikolopoulos said.

But Nikolopoulos wasn’t able to complete the task he had imposed upon himself. There was a murder case waiting for him at the police station. The body of yet another drugs dealer had been found.

Public prosecutor Gruber was a bit worried. He knew Nikolopoulos as a very good policeman with very straightforward ideas on justice, impossible to bribe. And exactly this Nikolopoulos was the man that would lead the investigations on the murder of the drugs dealer Markus Ritschka. Gruber knew very well why Ritschka was killed. Slowly but surely, a new drugs gang was trying to get a place in the drugs scene in Eiffelland. Gruber knew. He had been informed. This was part of a long-term plan for Eiffelland. Therefore, it was important that the real culprit of this murder would not be found.

The official name of Eiffelland was Königreich Eiffellands; however, the national institutions did not have the prefix Reichs- but Staats-. This was a consequence of the constitutional reforms of 1848, which turned Eiffelland into a constitutional monarchy. As a result, the chambers of Parliament were not called Reichstag and Reichsrat, but Staatstag and Staatsrat. Furthermore, the security agency was the Staatsschutz, and the national crime department was the Staatskriminalamt (SKA). It was this SKA where one of Gruber’s cousins worked. And this connection made it easy to Gruber to arrange for “assistance” to Nikolopoulos in the form of an SKA‑officer.

“If I can give you all one advice: Leave the island as soon as possible.” Joachim Rosenthal’s advice to Prince Ludwig and his friends from the fraternity was clear. But that was easier said than done. All the ferries were full. Ludwig and his friends had to stick to their original reservation on Saturday. They decided to stay in the holiday house until then. The guards from the Königlicher Garde saw themselves confronted with an additional job: Securing Ludwig’s friends.
But Ludwig didn’t want to leave the island without saying goodbye to Franz, so he went to the prison to visit him, with two guards. And there he was frightened by what he saw in Franz’s face. The guards had told the other inmates that he had been captured for homosexual intercourse, rape and severe maltreatment. Eiffellandian prisons were no exception to the rule that rapers were considered the lowest of the lowest by the other inmates, and therefore often beaten up. In Franz’s case, the inmates acted immediately.
“My goodness, this is terrible,” Ludwig said. “Poor you.”
“And that already after one day. This will probably go on for the next 10 to 15 years. I doubt if I will be able to sustain that,” Franz said.
“15 years?! Are you going to get 15 years?!” Ludwig asked.
“According to my lawyer, 15 years would be the maximum punishment,” Franz said. “But if we can prove that it wasn’t me who beat up Mirko, it will become much less. But then I’ll still be convicted for homosexual intercourse and rape of a minor. What a backwards island. Mirko is old enough and by far self‑conscious enough to determine what he wants or not, but he’s 5 months away from his 21st birthday, so the people here say that I raped a minor. Scheisse. 15 years of my life thrown away in this backwards shithole.”
“Poor you,” Ludwig said, and put his hand on Franz’s shoulder. He hoped that it would help Franz at least a bit that it was a member of the Royal Family who visited him. It wouldn’t help him before court, but maybe it would make his life in prison somewhat easier.
“When are you leaving?” Franz asked after a while.
“Tomorrow. We have to. Meanwhile things have become dangerous to us as well,” Ludwig said. “But I will visit you from time to time.”

It was quite a surprise to Ludwig that Franz was gay. It was also quite shocking to him to see how the others from his year reacted, despite the fact that he was aware of how noblemen generally thought of homosexuality. Sometimes Ludwig thought that exactly the highest noble family of Eiffelland (the Royal Family) was the only noble family who didn’t have a problem with homosexuality. He did consider telling Franz that he was gay as well so that he wouldn’t feel completely lonely, but he had rejected that plan. What if Franz wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut?
The question whether he and Franz could have been together didn’t occur to him. It never did, and it didn’t occur now, either. At the beginning of the study year, Ludwig was still heavily in love with Matthias, and now he was still mourning for him. And he felt guilty. He felt that he hadn’t done enough to rescue Matthias one way or another. At this moment, there was no place for a new lover in Ludwig’s life.


27 July 1956

“Look. This is good news,” David Rosenthal said to himself when he opened the letter from the Ministry for Defence. The Armed Forces didn’t make public by default in which unit each soldier served, but that information was not secret, either. When you had a good reason to know where a particular soldier served, you could get that information. And unless the soldier in question was serving on a critical position, the information was correct. In that way, Rosenthal managed to find out that Mirko Burovski was indeed serving in a unit meant for homosexuals. That was a unit you could only enter voluntarily, and when you made clear that you were homosexual. How would the judge react when he saw that at Mirko consciously made choices he would only make when he was homosexual, in spite of the fact that he was a minor?


24 August 1956

Ludwig had just visited Franz in the prison. He had heard there that the trial would take place on 1 September, with the verdict on 15 September. Meanwhile, WSC Odysseus was considering to cancel Franz’s membership. The reasoning was that it would not make sense to let his membership continue when he would be in prison for several years. Several people, among others Ludwig, had pointed at the fact that Franz still could be acquitted due to procedural mistakes made by the public prosecutor; therefore, Franz’s membership had not been cancelled yet, although informally there were people who preferred to see him out of the fraternity even in case of an acquittal.
After his visit to the prison, Ludwig seated himself on the terrace of the coffee bar where Joachim Rosenthal worked. It was Joachim who served him.
“Ludwig! You here?” Joachim asked.
“Yes. I was visiting Franz in the prison,” Ludwig said.
“Believe me, the people here still haven’t forgotten you guys,” Joachim said, referring to Ludwig’s friends from the fraternity.
“I understand that we left an impression here, but I don’t think we can leave Franz to his own devices,” Ludwig said.
“Man, I can name several guys who still want to beat one of you guys up,” Joachim said.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m a blackbelter in Taek won-do. Furthermore, I may be alone at this table, but I’m not alone at this terrace,” Ludwig said. “And I will leave the town after my cup of coffee and my water.”
“OK. I will bring it,” Joachim said. A few minutes later, he came back with a cup of coffee and a glass of cold mineral water.
“How is Franz doing?” Joachim asked.
“Not really well. He is beaten up in prison. That already started just after he was transferred there,” Ludwig said. “Last week somebody beat him a broken nose. And none of the jailers is helping him. He tried to charge some of the people who beat him up, but the jailers don’t even want to note it.”
“The problem is, Ludwig, that he is not from here, that he is gay, and that he is considered a raper. Even if my father will manage to get him acquitted of that charge, he will be considered a raper, simply because he slept with an underage guy from here. Even if that underage guy is only 4 months away from his 21st birthday, even if we don’t mind about 20 years old girls having sex with 23 years old guys, and even if it was the 20 years and 8 months old underage guy who seduced the 23 years old guy,” Joachim said. “Helgoland is not the mainland.”
Joachim squatted to get closer to Ludwig’s face. Then he whispered: “I myself am straight, as you know. But I don’t mind about homosexuality, either. I am religious, but I also know the story about David and Jonathan, which was clearly a gay relationship. The fact that the Tenach doesn’t mention the fact that they slept with each other is nothing else but an omission. You can’t tell me that David and Jonathan never slept with each other; the Tenach just doesn’t mention it. The only thing that Wayeekra (Leviticus in the Christian Bible) forbids, is anal sex. Nothing more. At least that is how I interpret it.”
“But why do both Judaism and Chrsitianity and Islam have such a problem with homosexuality if it is possible to interpret Leviticus that way?” Ludwig whispered.
“I think that other than religious feelings played a role in that process. The fact that homosexuality is such a problem here on the island is not completely based on religion, you know,” Joachim whispered. “There is an unwritten rule on how men should behave. Homosexuality is still linked to being feminine, and it is shameful to a man to be feminine. I think that feeling played a larger role in Judaism, Christianity and Islam to become homophobic than the litteral texts of the Tenach, Bible and Quran. And it is mainly that feeling that feeds the homophoby in this island.”
“But why is there such a difference between Helgoland and the mainland?” Ludwig whispered.
“Well, basicly, the countryside of Eiffelland is not really gay-friendly, either. Only the cities on the mainland are open-minded, and surprisingly also the smaller cities. But indeed, something happened on the mainland that did not happen here,” Joachim whispered. “Maybe the grounding of the university in Aurich will change something.”

 

[Rheinbund]

1 September 1956
Wiesmoor, Helgoland, Eiffelland

Wiesmoor didn’t have its own court. It fell under the jurisdiction of the capital of the Kreis it was part of. There was a courtroom though. Once every week three judges of the Kreisgericht held court there, for penal and civil trials, and to decide about whether suspects should be held in custody or not.
Eiffelland did not have jury trials; all trials were bench trials. Short causes were handled by one judge, but all other causes were presided by three (or in the case of the Hohe Staatsgericht five) judges. These judges formulated the verdict together. The criminal trials also had a different form than the civil trials. In civil trials, there were two parties that defended their causes before the court. In criminal trials, however, there were no parties. The role of the prosecutor was to make evident that the suspect violated the law. If there was no or too few evidence in the eyes of the judges, the suspect was acquitted. It was also possible that during the trial it appeared that the suspect could not have done the trial; in that case, the prosecutor could immediately plea for acquittal. The role of the barrister was to represent the suspect; he checked on behalf of the suspect whether the procedures were followed correctly (if not, acquittal), challenged evidence brought up by the prosecutor, brought in evidence that the suspect was innocent, and mentioned any special circumstances under which the crime was committed in order to get a lower punishment.
Both the judges and the prosecutor and the barrister wore white bands and black gowns during the trial. There was an exception to this rule for the islands and the southernmost province in the mainland though. Between May and October, the colours of the bands and gowns were changed because of the heat; then the bands were black and the gowns were white. This because it would become too warm under a black gown then. Also today, at Franz’s trial, the magistrates and the barrister were wearing white gowns.
At 11 o’ clock, Franz and his lawyer David Rosenthal were shown into the courtroom. The trial began with reading the indictment. After the introducing pleas of the prosecutor and Rosenthal, the first witnesses were interrogated by the prosecutor and the judge. They testified that they saw Franz and Mirko making love. Rosenthal refrained from his right to interrogate these witnesses.
Then Mirko’s mother was interrogated. She testified that she saw Franz beating up Mirko. When it was Rosenthal’s turn to interrogate Mirko’s mother, he walked to the table where the corpora delicti were lying. Upon his request, all the belts Franz had in his holiday luggage had been put there. Rosenthal took all the belts and walked to Mirko’s mother with them.
“Mrs. Burovski, was it one of these belts that Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen used for beating up Mirko?” he asked.
“Yes, it was,” Mrs. Burovski said.
“Thank you, Mrs. Burovski,” Rosenthal said.
Mirko’s mother was followed by Mirko’s father. After the interrogation by the prosecutor, during which also Mirko’s father testified how he saw Franz beating up Mirko, Rosenthal went to the table with the corpora delicti again, took the belts and showed them to Mirko’s father.
“Mr. Burovski, was it one of these belts that Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen used for beating up Mirko?” he asked.
“Yes, it was,” Mrs. Burovski said.
“Thank you, Mr. Burovski,” Rosenthal said.
This whole course of events repeated five more times, for Mirko’s brother Paul and Paul’s friends.

Then Rosenthal took the floor.
“Meine Herren Richter, Mirko Burovski’s parents and brother, as well as four friends of Mirko Burovski’s brother, just testified that Franz Schenk von Bechhofen beat up Mirko Burovski, among others with one of these belts. I have a measuring-tape here. Let’s measure the widths of these belts.” And so he did, in such a way that the judges could see it.
“As you just saw, the belts are all measure around 2 centimeters wide. Now let’s look at the picture of Mirko’s back. This picture has been enlarged at real size, so one centimeter on this picture is one centimeter in real.” Rosenthal took the picture to the judges, and measured up Mirko’s belt lashes.
“As you can see, all those belt lashes are 4 or more centimeters wide. This is also the width mentioned in Mirko Burovski’s medical report. I would like to hear the witness Dr. Otto Ranke, surgeon and Oberarzt at the Universitätsklinikum Marburg,” Rosenthal said.
The professor was shown in.
“Herr Doktor Ranke is one of the leading specialists with regards to injuries in the widest sense of the word. He coined the term ‘traumatologist’ for surgeons specialised in healing patients with complex injuries, for instance after a car crash,” Rosenthal said. “I asked him here to ask his opinion about whether one of these belts could have caused the injuries on Mirko’s back.”
Doktor Ranke was shown the belts first. Then he was asked to describe what kind of lashes such a belt would cause. Ranke did. Then he was shown the picture of Mirko’s back, after which he indicated that Franz’s belts could not have caused Mirko’s belt lashes. Also after the interrogation by the prosecutor, Ranke insisted that Mirko’s lashes could not have been caused by Franz’s belts.

“Meine Herren Richter, I already said in my introductory speech that my client did not beat up Mirko Burovski. Indeed, we have seven witnesses who say he did. However, all seven witnesses tell exactly the same story. They did so when they were interrogated by the police; you can read the transcripts in the file, and you will see it. And they did so again today in the courtroom. Furthermore, they all said that my client used one of the belts I presented to them, i.e. one of the belts in my client’s holiday luggage. But now we hear from a specialist in injuries from one of Eiffelland’s university hospitals, Doktor Ranke, that the belts in question could not have caused Mirko’s lashes,” Rosenthal said.
“Maybe Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen did have another belt? Or maybe he grabbed it from somewhere?” the prosecutor said.
“The kind of belt that could have caused these injuries doesn’t fit in any of Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen’s trousers or shorts in his luggage. I don’t think anybody will pack a belt into his luggage that won’t fit in the clothes he will take with him. Or by accident, but then as soon as he finds out, the belt will land somewhere far away in the luggage,” Rosenthal said. “I also checked the luggage of Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen’s friends. None of the belts in their luggage could have caused these injuries. Maybe the coupling straps of the Königlicher Garde, but I don’t think any of the guardists would lend his coupling strap. This means that Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen must have looked for a belt to beat Mirko Burovski up. That is not what somebody will do when he is so angry that he starts a fight. Then he will look for anything in the neighbourhood that can serve him. In the case of a belt, Mr. Schenk von Bechhofen will have pulled the one he was wearing out of his trousers instead of looking for one.”
“Mirko is currently in the army. Maybe his coupling strap was lying on a sideboard,” the prosecutor said.
“Mirko’s coupling strap was in his side board,” Rosenthal said. “You can find that back in the police report. I would like to hear Mr. Burovski again.”

Mirko’s father was shown into the withness‑bench again. Then Rosenthal started to talk.
“Mr. Burovski, what is your opinion on homosexuality?” he asked.
“What would my opinion be, you think?” Mirko’s father asked back. “My son was raped by a Schwuchtel from the mainland! They should all be locked up!”
“But what if your own son is gay?” Rosenthal asked.
“My sons aren’t gay,” Mirko’s father said.
“Are you sure, Mr. Burovski?” Rosenthal asked.
“Yes, I am,” Mirko’s father said.
“Then you know your younger son less well than you think, Mr. Burovski,” Rosenthal said.
Mirko’s father’s mouth fell open. Rosenthal’s son Joachim, who was also in the court room as a visitor, looked around in the court room. He saw Mirko’s mother’s mouth falling open as well. He saw Mirko writhe. He saw Paul Burovski agitatedly discussing with his friends.
“Mirko Burovski explicitly requested to serve his military duty on the mainland,” Rosenthal said. “Why? Because he wanted to serve his military duty in a special unit. It may be good to explain that the army has separate units for homosexual conscripts. Mirko Burovski applied for, and was admitted to, such a unit. There is only one reason why he did so: He is gay.”
The public started to murmur. The presiding judge called for order.
“It must be a shock to you to find out that your son is gay,” Rosenthal said. “I don’t know the feeling, but I can imagine how you feel. You consider it a shame to the family, and it hurts your own manliness.” A few moments later, he continued.
“And that’s why you beat him up,” Rosenthal said.
“What?” Mirko’s father shouted.
“And it helped. Look at Mirko now. Look at how he is telling what his parents told him to tell,” Rosenthal said. “But what will happen if he goes back to his army unit? Then he will go on with putting shame upon his family.”
“You can’t prove anything, Herr Rechtsanwalt,” Mirko’s father said.
“That may become different in the future. I examined the neighbourhood of your house the day after I took up this case, and found a leather belt. It was exactly a belt that could have caused your son’s injuries. With lots of fingerprints on it, as well as some blood,” Rosenthal said.
“What? But I cleaned my belt! I never threw it away!” Mirko’s father said.

Now it began to murmur stronger in the court room. The presiding judge asked for order again. Then he ordered the court police to arrest Mirko’s father.

 

[Rheinbund]

1 September 1956
Wiesmoor, Helgoland, Eiffelland

“Herr Rechtsanwalt, why didn’t you hand over that belt to the police?” the public prosecutor whispered to Rosenthal during the rumour that emerged when Mirko’s father was taken away.
“Aber Herr Staatsanwalt, you just heard that Mirko’s father cleaned the belt after he used it,” Rosenthal whispered. “I don’t have it.”
“What?” the prosecutor whispered back.
“Why are you surprised, Herr Staatsanwalt? I only applied a police trick,” Rosenthal whispered.

The presiding judge called for order. The trial continued.

“Meine Herren Richter, I would like to call some more witnesses. I think we need to hear Mrs. Burovski again, as well as Paul Burovski and his friends. But first I would like to call Mirko Burovski,” Rosenthal said.

Mirko was led to the witness bench. He seated himself. Rosenthal started to ask.

“Mirko, you went back to your army unit in the beginning of last month. Correct?” Rosenthal said.
“Yes, that’s correct,” Mirko said.
“What did you tell there to explain the bruises and your sickness?” Rosenthal asked.
“I told that I was beaten up by a lover,” Mirko said.
“But in fact it wasn’t your lover who beat you up. Your father just indicated that it was him,” Rosenthal said. After a few minutes, he continued. “Was it really against your will?”
“What?” Mirko asked.
“The intercourse with my client,” Rosenthal said. “You applied for the gay units of the army. You only do so if you are gay yourself. So at least the inclination is already there. I know that you are a minor, and that is an aggravating factor for my client. But I also know that you are not a minor without an own will. It was your own decision to apply for the gay units of the army. My client says that it was you who seduced him. You say that this happened against your will. This will be his word against yours, because there are no witnesses. But if it was indeed you who seduced my client and you insist on it before this court that it was a rape, how will you be able to face your friends in the gay units of the army after that lie? They will consider it a betrayal of their own kind.”
Rosenthal remained silent for a few moments. Then he continued: “I can’t prove that it was actually you who seduced my client. If that was really the case, you will either have to tell and live in peace with yourself afterwards, or be silent and live with the fact that the person you loved at least two months ago will be punished for something he didn’t do, while he is already punished for something that is part of yourself to such an extent that you want to leave the island for it. How will you be able to look your mates on the mainland in the eyes, knowing that you didn’t stand for yourself?”
Mirko remained silent for a while. Then he said: “I need to wash my hands.”

The presiding judge allowed Mirko to go to the bathroom. Meanwhile, the other witnesses were heard.

But when it was time again to hear Mirko, he was gone.

Because there were no witnesses left to hear, the judges decided to start with the requisitory and the adress for the defence. The public prosecutor dropped the charge of severe maltreatment, but maintained the charges of homosexual intercourse, intercourse with a minor and rape. He demanded 10 years imprisonment. Then it was Rosenthal’s turn.

“Meine Herren Richter, indeed, it is true. My client did have homosexual intercourse with Mirko Burovski on the beach of Wiesmoor on 13 July of this year,” Rosenthal said. “But I don’t think there is enough ground to assume that this happened against Mirko’s will. Mirko Burovski is an active homosexual; otherwise he would not have served in an army unit dedicated for homosexuals. As a result, there is enough room to assume that he agreed with the intercourse. One argument in favour of that assumption is the way the two young men were found on 13 July. We can very well conclude out of the testimonies that the intercourse took place after mutual agreement. Mirko testified that it was a rape, but how valid is that testimony? In the end, it appeared that it was not my client but Mirko’s father who beat him up. So that was a false testimony, by Mirko, but also by his family, and by those friends of Mirko’s brother. And I think Mirko was forced to give this testimony. He didn’t take the opportunity to tell this, but I think he was forced. That could also apply to his testimony about the rape. Indeed, we still have the fact that Mirko was, and still is, a minor, but also minors have their own will. An own will with which they agree to sexual intercourse. If the intercourse my client is accused of really took place on mutual agreement, we cannot call it rape, and we must take into account that my client is only Iimited imputable for the charge of sexual intercourse with a minor.”

The verdict would take place on 15 September.

After the trial, Mirko’s mother went home together with Mirko’s brother. There they made a horrible discovery. Mirko had used his army weapon for one last time.

 

[Rheinbund]

15 September 1956
Wiesmoor, Helgoland, Eiffelland

The reading of Franz’s verdict was the first case on the role today. At nine o’ clock, Franz and his lawyer were shown into the courtroom. Then the presiding judge read the verdict. After reading the charges, he summarised the findings during the first trial day, and then he read the verdict with the line of reasoning.

“The suspect Franz Lorenz Johannes Antonius Schenk von Bechhofen is standing trial for the charges of homosexual intercourse with and rape of the minor Mirko Burovski on the beach of Wiesmoor on 13 July 1956, severe maltreatment in the house of the family Burovski in the Webergasse 25 in Wiesmoor during the night from 13 to 14 July 1956, and the theft of fuel from a car in the Dorfstraße in Ochtersum on 14 July 1956.
The suspect confessed the homosexual intercourse with the minor Mirko Burovski, which was also confirmed by several witnesses, as well as the theft of fuel in Ochtersum, which was also confirmed by Polizeimeister Friedrich Stengel from the Police in Ochtersum. We consider the suspect guilty of these two deeds.
Regarding the charge of severe maltreatment of Mirko Burovski, given the lapsus by Mirko’s father that sounded like a confession, we consider this charge not proven. We follow the demand by the public prosecutor, and acquit the suspect of the charge of severe maltreatment of Mirko Burovski.
The situation regarding the charge of rape of Mirko Burovski is less straightforward. The suspect’s attorney pleaded that it was very plausible that Mirko Burovski placed also this statement under pressure. Indeed, Mirko Burovski volunteered for serving his military duty in one of the army units for homosexuals. Indeed, that suggests that Mirko Burovski considered himself homosexual. And indeed, that leaves room for the notion that the intercourse between the suspect and Mirko Burovski could have taken place under mutual agreement. However, the simple fact that Mirko Burovski was still a minor makes the question whether the intercourse took or did not place under mutual agreement not relevant for answering the guilt. The law defines homosexual intercourse with a minor as rape, because the minor has to be protected against infringements by adults who try to take him off the developmental path to a natural perception of sexuality. The same accounts for the voluntary decision by Mirko Burovski to serve his military duty in the army units for homosexuals. That could be considered an indication that Mirko considered himself homosexual, and indeed suggest that the intercourse took place under mutual agreement, but also then Mirko agreed to the intercourse as a minor. Therefore, we consider the suspect guilty of the rape of Mirko Burovski. However, the mutual agreement to the intercourse can be considered a mitigating factor. In that case, the mutual agreement must be proven before the court. Mirko Burovski stated before the court that there was no mutual agreement to the intercourse. We acknowledge the possibillity that also that statement, like the one about the severe maltreatment, could have been given under pressure. Unfortunately, due to a tragic course of events, we cannot ask this to Mirko Burovski any more. Therefore, we have to take his statement as it is.
We sentence the suspect to nine years imprisonment, of which four years conditional with a probation of ten years, for the charge of homosexual intercourse with a minor and rape on 13 July 1956. Given the fact that the suspect was arrested on 14 July 1956, he will be conditionally released from prison on 14 July 1961, and his probation will end on 15 July 1971 at Midnight.”


19 September 1956
Aurich, Helgoland, Eiffelland

Franz had been transported from the police prison in Wiesmoor to the prison in Aurich. Today his parents and his lawyer visited him. They were shocked by the bruises in his face.
“My goodness. Franz, what happened?” his mother asked.
“I have been beaten up by other prisoners,” Franz said. “The prison guards told that I raped a minor. The fact that Mirko was almost 21 doesn’t count, especially not because Mirko was a guy. And they hate gays anyway here.”
Rosenthal took a photo camera out of his bag.
“Franz, I propose that we are going to photograph your injuries,“ he said. “This has to stop, and the only way we can make it stop is by making this case public. Hopefully I can get you to a different department of the prison, or even a different prison.”
“But will that change anything? If the guards start talking there, everything starts all over again,” Franz said.
“You’re not the only guy here in Helgoland who was punished for homosexual intercourse. I will talk to the lawyers of those other people, and try to get you all on a separate department,” Rosenthal said. Then he took pictures of Franz’s injuries.

“Now the trial,” Rosenthal said. “It looked quite badly for you in the beginning, I have to say. You could have got 15 to 20 years imprisonment if I wouldn’t have been able to acquit you of the severe maltreatment of Mirko.”
“Well, basicly I still have those 15 years,” Franz said. “My probation ends in 1971.”
“Yes, but how much does that probation say? The first thing you will do after your release in five years, is take the first possibility to leave the island. Your probation only counts for what you do here. You can’t be taken up for things that are punishable according to Helgolandian law but are committed outside Helgoland. It doesn’t matter for your probation if you get a boyfriend on the Mainland, or even in Rügen. As long as you stay away from Helgoland with your boyfriend until 15 July 1971, that is. With that in mind, there is a large gap between the 20 years you could have got and the 5 years unconditional you currently have now. And even with the 10 years unconditional the public prosecutor demanded. Although we have to be careful with cheering. There is still the possibility that the public prosecutor goes in appeal.”
“And what will happen then?” Franz asked.
“Well, then the rape issue will be completely open again. In any case, the judges did consider our point about the rape charge. Strictly speaking, the judges indeed have to take the initial statement by Mirko for real, simply because it was not withdrawn or refuted. The fact that Mirko made a false statement about the maltreatment under family pressure doesn’t render his other statements void from a legal point of view. On the other hand, the judges didn’t want to take that statement completely for real; that is why the unconditional part of your punishment is so short and the conditional part of your punishment is so long. I think they thought that there were enough mitigating factors to let you serve only those five years, but could not build that on legally solid ground. And indeed, that solid ground would only have existed if Mirko would have withdrawn his statement. So they decided to compromise between rape without mitigating factors and rape that is only legally a rape. The result is, that you will face consequences during 15 years (or theoretically 20 years if you breach the probation on 14 July 1971), but that your direct imprisonment will only last five years, so you will be able to take up your life relatively soon again.”

 

[Rheinbund]

Air Force Base Ratzeburg
30 km from Ratzeburg

The Schwan was not the only design of a long-range passenger plane that Dassau worked on. There was also another one, a relatively flat plane that stood high on its wheels and that had three tail fins. In the end, that design was not used for the long-range passenger plane. But those plans were not completely forgotten. Dassau decided to put a vertical radome (a radar installation inside a cocoon made of radar beam permeable material) on top of this other prototype, and to attach a horizontal radome to the bottom of the plane. It worked out perfectly.
A month ago, Dassau announced the introduction of the Warnstern, as the plane had been baptised. Now the first five of these planes were delivered to the Eiffellandian Air Force on the Air Force Base Ratzeburg. After the ceremony had ended, General Schablonski took Tobias Dassau apart.

“Thank you for your work, Herr Dassau,” the general said. “The Warnstern will be extremely helpful, should it indeed come to war in the Kalahari Sea. We are currently preparing the deployment of the first one. Above the Kalahari Sea, together with a tanker plane.”
“You’re welcome, Herr General,” Dassau said. “Will all Warnsterne remain stationed here?”
“No, of course not,” the general said. “One of the credos of the Eiffellandian armed forces is spread spread spread. Each plane will go to a different air force base. But of course they will not be completely spread over the country. The mechanics will have to be able to talk to each other, so they will be based in Emsland.”

 

[Rheinbund]

Stolzenau Castle
Stolzenau, community Landsberg, Rheinland, Eiffelland

Gregor Herzog von Stolzenau looked up from his newspaper. He looked into the faces of his helper Viehbach and a man he only knew by name, Miloś Slobodović.
“What a bloody idiots,” he said.
“Pardon me, Sir?” Viehbach asked.
“You heard that the government of the Chetnik Empire warned us for some so-called Nazis who fled to Eiffelland, right?” Stolzenau said. “Ten of them were caught in Weissenfels two days ago. They were molesting a Jew. Apart from what I think about molesting Jews, this was the perfect way for those bloody Nazis to unveil themselves. It will be a matter of time before the Staatsschutz knows who the other Nazis are, and where they are. And now you bring me this Miloś Slobodović. How do I know that the Staatsschutz isn’t after him?”
“Especially you should be able to find that out, Sir,” Viehbach said, implicitly pointing at Stolzenau’s contacts in the Staatsschutz.
“Even I do not know everything,” Stolzenau said. He had just read the obituary pages of the newspaper. One name mentioned on those pages was the name of his contact in the far right movements department of the Staatsschutz. The man had died in a car crash, but even in Eiffelland that could mean everything. Gomulka, the man who dismantled Von Weizenburg’s organisation five years ago, was doing intelligence work again. This Gomulka was one of the best agents the Staatsschutz had. And also the most merciless one.
“Sir, in one aspect you are right,” Slobodović said, in good but not accentless German. “Those Nazis in Weissenfels are bloody idiots. That is exactly the reason why my group cut the ties with them as soon as the government of the Chetnik Empire started to prosecute against Nazis. Those people may know who we are, but they definitely don’t know where we are.”
“Then who exactly are you?” Stolzenau asked.
“I represent a group of ten ex-officers from the army of the Chetnik Empire. The government found out that we are Nazis, so we had to flee the country. And that’s how we ended up here, with false Lovisan passports, Slobodović said. Stolzenau estimated that he was somewhere between 25 and 30 years old. “I myself am the highes in rank of these ex-officers. I am a first-class Lieutenant. The other men are all second-class Lieutenants or Ensigns,” Slobodović continued.
“And what do you expect from me then?” Stolzenau said.
“Let’s face one fact, Sir. The GEL doesn’t exist any more. You want to form a fascist government, but you only have a hand full of henchmen. I can’t offer you a new GEL, at least not yet, but on the short term I can offer ourselves as your henchmen,” Slobodović said.
“Aha,” Stolzenau said. “How do I know that you and your men won’t get into a fit as soon as they see somebody with a skullcap?”
“Sir, we are oficers in one of the most disciplined armies in the region. The fact that our dicator … let me describe it politely, sometimes has difficulties to control his impulses, does not change that. Indeed, we hate Jews, but unlike those idiots in Weissenfels we know how to control our hate,” Slobodović said. “The only thing we want to do, is to help you to get the right society in this country.”
“Good. Now let’s talk to your people as well,” Stolzenau said.

Stolzenau, Viehbach and Slobodović left Stolzenau’s study and went to the room where Stolzenau usually received his tenants or the people from the village. The nine people of Slobodović were sitting there, guarded by five people from Stolzenau. All rised as soon as Stolzenau Viehbach and Slobodović walked in. Stolzenau walked around in front of the Chetniks to take a closer look at them. Then he started to talk.

“Gentlemen, you will probably have heard about those people from your country who molested a Jew in Southern Eiffelland. As a result, the Eiffellandian authorities are currently searching the whole country for Chetniks, especially for the Chetniks mentioned by the Chetniks arrested in Weissenfels. I hope I don’t have to tell you why I consider those Chetniks fools.”

He stopped talking for a few moments. Then he continued

“I spoke to your leader Miloś Slobodović. He told me that you are disciplined army officers instead of hotheaded cretins who can’t control themselves. I will take you up in my group. However, I warn you for one thing. Nobody will be molested or killed without my approval. The punishment will be death if it occurs, inflicted upon you in a way even the Chetnik secret services will shrink from. Let that be clear. This also accounts for Jews. I know that you have a special hatred towards them. I myself am not really fond of Jews, either, but attacking a Jew means unveiling yourself. That could also mean that you are laying a trace to me. That is why I am very hard on this.”

He stopped talking again for a few moments. Then he continued.

“You will be taken to a remote location. Don’t worry, it will be a comfortable one, even with women. You will all be trained for secret operations, at this moment mainly regarding the assassination of people. I need to ask you to not ask questions about why you have to carry out a certain task. The reason for that is that it is better for you not to know too much when you are caught, for obvious reasons. I will explain my long-term strategy to Slobodović though.”

OOC: Jebatsch, if you want to do something with these ten Chetniks, please notify me beforehand.

 

[Rheinbund]

Sankt Michaelsdom
Trier, Eiffelland
24 December 1956


Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Alles schläft; einsam wacht
Nur das traute hoch heilige Paar.
Holder Knab' im lockigen Haar,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh!

Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht was THE German Christmas song. It was composed on the spot by the priest Franz Xaver Gruber in 1818, who took up his guitar on Christmas Eve when the organ appeared to be broken just before mass. To honour the way the song emerged, it became tradition in Eiffelland to sing Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht accompanied with one, two or three acoustic guitars (or more, depending on the size of the church or any other room where the song was sung). The song was also sung quite softly, because that was the way it sounded best.


Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Gottes Sohn, o wie lacht
Lieb' aus deinem göttlichen Mund,
Da uns schlägt die rettende Stund'.
Jesus in deiner Geburt!
Jesus in deiner Geburt!

Also in the Sankt Michaelsdom, the Court Church of the Eiffellandian Royal Family and the cathedral of Trier, this song was accompanied with gentle acoustic guitar music. The Royal Family was always one of the first groups to arrive at the Cathedral, and it arrived without any protocol to symbolise that everybody is equal before God.


Stille Nacht! Heilige Nacht!
Hirten erst kundgemacht
Durch der Engel Alleluja,
Tönt es laut bei Ferne und Nah:
"Christ der Retter ist da!"
"Christ der Retter ist da!"

Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht was always the first song to be sung before the Night Mass started. After then, two or three more songs were sung. Then during the last song, the priest (or bishop) entered the church near the altar, walked through the left aisle to the back of the church, and then through the main aisle to the altar again. After that, Mass started.

The church had been decorated beautifully, as always for Christmas. All four advent candles were burning. The scenery had been built up, although the three wise men were not there yet. They would be added on 6 January (Epiphany).

1956 had been an eventful year. Politically, with the awakening of Kadikistan from a decade-long slumber and a near-war with the Socialist World Republic, but for some people also personally. Everybody had something to think about. The King and Prince Ludwig were still thinking about Matthias von Luckenwalde—had they really done everything possible, or did they overlook a possibility to save the guy? At least the King thought that he had made a mistake: He had sent in the Gesundheitsamt too late, leaving Prof. Waldbaum enough time to eliminate Matthias.

Hundreds of kilometres to the North, there was a man attending the night mass in a small village church. 1956 had been eventful for him as well. It was at the beginning of the year that he got a brilliant idea to destabilise Eiffelland to such an extent that even the Eiffellandians would be prepared for revolution. Although it would not be the revolution Kadikistan would envision. Or maybe it was not really a revolution, but more a shift in political preferences to the right.
First, Stolzenau would take care of a reason for the people to shift to the right. His plan was to do so by stimulating drug abuse among Eiffelland’s youth. That would inevitably lead to an increase in crime: More burglaries, more thefts, and more robberies. Exactly the kind of crimes the common people would feel. Then he would present himself as the man to solve the problems. He had abandoned the idea of taking over the CDV; that party was too much in the hands of Von Seydewitz and his group.
On top of that, he had decided to take a part of the revenues attached to drug dealing as well. He ordered the killing of several key persons in the drug trafficking world, and replaced those persons with his own men. Make the youth addicted, earn money over it and then stand up as the man who will solve all problems.


Minuit ! Chrétiens, c'est l'heure solennelle
Où l'homme Dieu descendit jusqu'à nous,
Pour effacer la tache originelle
Et de son père arrêter le courroux:
Le monde entier tressaille d'espérance
A cette nuit qui lui donne un sauveur
Peuple à genoux, attends ta délivrance
Noël ! Noël ! Voici le Rédempteur !
Noël ! Noël ! Voici le Rédempteur !

Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht was THE German Christmas song, but strange enough the French song Minuit Chretiens was almost as popular as Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht in Eiffelland. It was traditionally sung as one of the Christmas songs before starting Christmas Mass. It was also Prince Ludwig’s favourite Christmas song, and he could sing it fantastically with his beautiful tenor voice and his accent less French. He sang it solo two years ago during Night Mass at the SMS Aachen (when Matthias fell in love with him), and he sang it solo this year during the Christmas concert at his fraternity.


Le Rédempteur a brisé toute entrave,
La terre est libre et le ciel est ouvert
Il voit un frère où n'était qu'un esclave
L'amour unit ceux qu'enchaînait le fer,
Qui lui dira notre reconnaissance ?
C'est pour nous tous qu'il naît, qu'il souffre et meurt:
Peuple, debout ! Chante ta délivrance,
Noël ! Noël ! Chantons le Rédempteur !
Noël ! Noël ! Chantons le Rédempteur !

The only thing Stolzenau had to think about, was what to do with Schleifer. Lothar’s descendant. Stolzenau didn’t have a problem with toppling the Royal Family as well, but would Schleifer be satisfied with being a King with limited power? Stolzenau didn’t consider it a good idea to hand over too much power to him—the man was too much a dreamer and too unstable.

 

[Rheinbund]

A big stable
Rabenau, Eiffelland
18 February 1957

“Our Carnival Float is almost ready,” one of the men said.
“Indeed. We have everything, except for that spot we always leave empty for things that pop up in the news right before Carnival,” one of the other men said. “What are we going to put there?”
“Maybe I know something,’ a third man said. “Did you see that item about the Chetnik dictator in the news? That he grabbed that man by the throat? Well, the man did more things of that kind. Remember that journalist he frightened away with showing his muscles? What about making a gigantic gorilla with the face of the dictator of the Chetnik Empire?”

The men looked at each other. Then they started to giggle. “Good idea, Weber,” one of them said.

Carnival is a fest that is celebrated happily and seriously all over Eiffelland. To the outside world, it looks like one big alcoholic orgy, but in fact, it is not that. Indeed, doing crazy things in strange costumes is a large part of it, and much alcohol is involved, but it is not only that. Eiffellandians are generally very obedient people, the Eiffellandian society is quite formal, and the Eiffellandians are mostly quite calm, but even Eiffellandians sometimes need to get loose. Carnival is meant for that. It is the time of the year that not only the comedians and cartoonists make jokes about politicians. Now also the common people, united in Carnival Associations, can make their jokes to show their thoughts about the world around them. The result is a Cavalcade with at least several floats showing enormous puppets representing local, provincial and national politicians. The Royal Family is not safe, either. And sometimes even foreign Heads of State and Heads of Government appear in the Cavalcade, especially if the stance of the Eiffellandian people towards those Heads of State and Heads of Government is negative. Nikolai Leninov, Serazin, and the leaders of the Socialist World Republic and the Chetnik Empire often appear in the Cavalcades, for obvious reasons. Sometimes also the leaders of other countries appear in the Cavalcade, but always in a nicer way than their colleagues from Kadikistan, Serenierre, the SWR and the Chetnik Empire do.

After having finished work on the Carnival Float, all the men went back home. Also Kriminalkommissar Weber. When he arrived home, he saw a police car parked in front of his house. “Strange,” he thought, “I’m not on duty now. What happened?” He opened the door of his house, and went in. He was greeted by his wife and children, and by one of his colleagues.
“Hello Stresemann, what happened?” he asked to his colleague, after having greeted his wife and children.
“A dead body, Weber. A child,” Stresemann replied.
“A child? Another one? Let me guess. In Hassloch.”
“Correct. It looks like an overdose. Again.”
“Mist.”
“Genau. The chef wants us to take up the case. He thinks it could be associated to the Rischka-case one way or the other.”
“The Rischka-case? Why that?” Weber asked.

Thomas Rischka was the uncrowned king of the Rabenauer drugs scene, until he was murdered half a year ago. That case was assigned to Weber, but he didn’t manage to solve it. It was obvious that Rischka’s successor was behind the murder, but who was he? In any case, he was more successful than Rischka was. It was clear from many indications that drug abuse was on the rise in Rabenau, especially in the poorer quarters of the city, like Hassloch. Weber was thinking about it, while sitting next to Stresemann, who drove to the location where the child had been found.

“The child was found with narrow pupils. This probably indicates that he had taken a dose of heroin before he died,” Stresemann said.
“Or received, for whichever reason. Let’s not rule that possibility out,” Weber said. “Let’s go there.”

Weber said goodbye to his wife and children, and followed Stresemann to the police car.

“Do we have an indication of who he could be?” Weber asked, while they went to the crime scene.
“No, not at all. But you know that Tackler’s son Roman is missing?” Stresemann replied.

Tackler was the owner of a local construction company. He was the richest man of Rabenau, but his wealth wasn’t accompanied with cultivation. His Raimer 300 was gold-coloured, his house was a big and showy monstrum of a copy of a medieval castle, and he wore a big golden Nichtsteiner watch, a big golden seal ring without a coat of arms on it (simply because he didn’t have a family coat of arms), big golden sleeve pins with enormous diamonds on them and a tie-pin with an enormous diamond on it. Everything the man did or had breathed bad taste.
He was also a man who was very convinced of his own excellence. His father grounded the company, but he himself made it large. And he let everyone know that he did. When he invited somebody at his house, he mainly did so to show what he could afford “through my own hard work”.

“And do you think it is Tackler’s son who is lying there?” Weber asked.
“Chances are big that it is indeed Tackler’s son,” Stresemann said. “I already arrested him a couple of times for petty things. I must say that Tackler reacted furiously every time he took the kid from the police station. I don’t want to know what happened afterwards at home, but it looks like that didn’t help to keep his son on the right track.”

At the crime scene, Weber and Stresemann went to the body of the boy. Stresemann looked at him, and said: “I’m afraid we have to notify Tackler. This is indeed his son Roman.”
Weber did know who Tackler was, but he had never seen his children. Or maybe he had, but then he hadn’t remembered how they looked like. He saw a boy aged between 14 and 16 years old, with his clothes on, and indeed remarkably narrow pupils.
“This looks like an overdose,” he said. Then he turned to the leader of the forensics team. “How long do you need, you think?”
“About 30 more minutes,” the man said.
“OK. Take the body to the main police station and inform Stresemann as soon as you are ready. When you are on your way to the police station, we will go to Tackler. We are certain that this is his son, but he or his wife has to officially identify him,” Weber said. Then he turned to Stresemann. “Who investigated Roman Tackler’s room at the Tackler residence?”
“I don’t know, sorry,” Stresemann said.
“Right. Then let’s go to the main police station,” Weber said. He informed the leader of the forensics team that they were going to the main police station.

At the main police station, Roman immediately searched for the dossier of Roman Tackler. From this dossier, it appeared that Roman’s room had not been investigated, for whichever reason.
“Stresemann, we have to go to Tackler with two teams. One team will take Mr. or Mrs. Tackler to the police station to identify Roman, and you and I will do some investigations at the Tackler home. The other team will have to take one of the Borgwards. I don’t think that Tackler will be willing to have himself driven around in a Beetle,” Weber said.

It was Tackler himself who decided to go the police station to identify Roman. When Weber and Stresemann indicated that they wanted to investigate Roman’s room, Tackler couldn’t resist making the remark: “Couldn’t you have done so yesterday? Then Roman would have still been alive.”
Weber let the remark pass. Indeed, that search should have been done one day earlier, but that would probably not have changed the situation. He would see if he would place a remark about this later on. He knew that his own position was a bit weak, not only because the murder case of Rischka remained unsolved, but also because he may have scratched on some mighty people during that car crash case three years ago.
But maybe this case could bring him further. If Roman’s death was indeed an overdose, there were two questions. If Roman was an addict and applied that overdose himself, there was a drug dealer to capture for attempt to murder. If Roman was killed by someone who applied him that overdose, there was a murderer to catch. A murderer who had access to heroin. Both scenarios gave Weber the opportunity to look at the higher levels of the drugs scene in Rabenau, maybe even at the highest level.
And that was something he was very eager to do. This new King of the Rabenauer drugs scene was so successful that more and more kids in Rabenau‑Hassloch, the bad quarter of Rabenau, where nobody had a perspective, got addicted to heroin. He knew that the lack of perspective was the main reason why those kids were susceptible to get addicted to heroin, but that was not something he could influence. The only thing he could influence, was the availability of heroin.

“What kind of guy was Roman?” Stresemann asked Mrs. Tackler while Weber investigated Roman’s room.
Mrs. Tackler gave the description of an impudent boy who was difficult to handle. It seemed that Roman continuously had fights with his parents, especially with his father. She also mentioned that Roman was repeatedly arrested for demolishing things, public violence and theft, something that Weber had seen in Roman’s police dossier as well.
While listening to Mrs. Tackler with half an ear, Weber searched around in Roman’s room. The pedestal appeared to be locked, but Weber managed to open it with a hairpin. Then he saw why the pedestal was locked: He found there a needle, a little sack with heroin, and all other necessary things to make it possible to inject heroin.
“Mrs. Tackler, did you know that Roman injected heroin?”

 

[Rheinbund]

Rabenau, Eiffelland
20 February 1957

The first place Weber went to on the Monday after Roman was found, was Roman’s school. It was not the Städtisches Gymnasium [1], where most children from his neighbourhood went to, but one of the Hauptschulen [2] in Rabenau. Weber had understood from Mrs. Tackler that Roman had been put back to the Realschule [3] last year because of his bad school results (which were the result of never doing anything for school), but that Tackler had decided to put him even on a Hauptschule. Weber knew the reputation of the school Roman had been sent to, at least of most of the pupils at that school. When Weber said that, Mrs. Tackler indicated that that had been Mr. Tackler’s decision: Putting Roman “between the scum” so that he would see where he would end if he would continue on his current path. Weber didn’t say anything about it, but he had his opinion. Roman would rather have been pulled even further into the wrong direction instead of realising that he didn’t want to end up there. That’s how it goes when you have the wrong friends at school age.
At Roman’s school, he interrogated the children of his class. Most children didn’t help him much further, but one girl did.

“He had a girlfriend,” she said. “From another school.”
“How do you know?” Weber asked.
“He took her with him to a school party once,” she said. “And did it with her at one of the toilets.”
“At the toilet. Not really the romantic type,” Weber remarked. The girl started to laugh.
“Roman and romanticism? Never. He was hard and agressive, also when making love,” she said.
“How do you know?” Weber asked.
“We did it once as well,” the girl said. Weber was surprised. “Why do you look so baffled? Everybody here gets deflowered at age 14.”
Weber decided not to ask further. He already knew the answer on how to handle pregnancies.
“This girlfriend of Roman. Do you know who she is?” Weber asked.
“I only know her first name: Anja,” the girl said.
“How does she look like?” Weber asked.
The girl gave a description.
“Do you know where she goes to school?” Weber asked.
“No, but maybe you can find her in the Engel,” the girl said.
“How do you know that?” Weber asked.
“Roman often went there, and bragged about it,” the girl said.

Der Engel was a bar in Hassloch. It was amazing that a rich kid from the better quarters of Hassloch came out of there in good health. Roman must have lied about his ancestry there, but then again. Everybody knew everybody in Hassloch. Roman must have been a stranger there. Unless he had been introduced there by somebody of good standing (whatever that would be in Hassloch), or had done something to base a good reputation on. Weber decided to go there.

“Do you by any chance know this guy?” he asked the bar owner while showing a picture of Roman.
The bar owner, a bundle of muscles of 2 meters tall with a shaven head and a face that clearly indicated “I’ll say nothing”, shook his head.
“Are you sure?” Weber asked.
The bar owner nodded his head.
“Really sure?” Weber asked.
“Bulle, when I say that I don’t know the kid, that means that I don’t know the kid,” the bar owner said in Rabenauer dialect.
“OK, now listen carefully,” Weber said. “This ‘kid’ is dead. I am here to investigate how and why he died. You can answer my questions here in this cosy athmosphere, or I can have you escorted to the police station and ask my questions there. But then I will ask a lot more questions about a lot more topics. Like those underage kids that you give alcohol here. Or that drugs dealer who is selling his drugs here in this pub. You know that that can cost you your licence? And even more?”
“Who told you about that drug dealer?” the bar owner asked.
“That’s none of your business. Now, are you going to tell me if you know this guy?” Weber said while holding up Roman’s picture again.
“OK OK, I’m gonna talk. He’s dead you say?” the bar owner said.
“Yes, he’s dead,” Weber said.
“He often came here, especially during the weekends,” the bar owner said. “He introduced himself as Roman Schleck. He said he was 18 years old, but I didn’t believe he was.”
Of course Roman had used a different family name here. His real family name wouldn’t have helped him here.
“I know that he had a girlfriend. Do you know anything about her?”
“Yes, Anja Sandmann,” the bar owner said. Then he gave the same description of the girl. “Did you know that he had made the girl pregnant?”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Weber said.
“Last Wednesday she shouted that around here in the bar. Then she also shouted out that Roman Schleck was in real Roman Tackler. And then she shouted that she would go to the Tacklers to demand a large sum of money for the child,” the bar owner said.
“Did you see her back after that?” Weber asked.
“Yes, last Saturday. She had a lash of a leather belt in her face,” the bar owner said.
“OK,” Weber said. “I have some more questions about Roman. What kind of guy was he?”
“The normal heroin kid, he would do anything to get his drugs. Proud of himself, aggressive.”
“He wasn’t from Hassloch,” Weber said. “But apparently he managed to get accepted in this bar, in this neighbourhood. How did he do that?”
“Don’t know yourself? No. probably not. Otherwise you would have arrested him. He killed Thomas Rischka.”
“Thomas Rischka?” Weber asked surprised. He was completely baffled. How could Roman have come so close to Thomas Rischka?
“Yes, Thomas Rischka,” the bar owner said.
“Well, indeed, that would have given him a reputation. Do you know on whose orders he handled?” Weber asked.
The bar owner thought for a moment. Then he said: “There are rumours, but I cannot tell you anything about that, otherwise I get killed as well,”
“You’ve already helped me a lot. Thank you,” Weber said. “I would like to talk to Anja as well. Can you point me at her tonight?”
“Yes, I will do so,” the bar owner said.


Kaiser Friedrich I
Long Sea
10 March 1957

The Eiffellandian Navy had carry out quite some restructuring to make the handling of the new Poseidon‑Class carrier possible. The oldest and most obsolete ships were decommissioned; this led to the end of the cruiser Emden, the destroyers Warnemünde and Wetzlar (whose names would be re-used in 2 years for two new missile destroyers) and all six torpedo boats.
But now the Navy had a very large aircraft carrier at its disposal. Of course the main purpose of this carrier was a military one; it would house a.o. the Sturmvogel. But it also served another purpose: Dassay Flugzeugwerke used the carrier as a testing platform for the development of new planes. Like the future Wassergeist, or the future Wellenritter 2 helicopter. Today was the first test with the Wassergeist on an aircraft carrier. Start and landing procedures would be tested.

When the test pilot climbed out of the plane after his test flight, he said: “This is a beast of a plane. Believe me, it will be the best plane of the 1960s.”
The Captain of the ship looked at the engineer from Dassau.
“One small question. Why did you design two planes? If this plane is so good, why then also design the Luftgeist?”
“There are two reasons for that,” the engineer said. “One reason is that we want to continue with the delta wing. It has many advantages; we are even thinking of a supersonic passenger plane with a delta wing. The only problem is, that not even this ship will be big enough for a plane with a delta wing to take off or land. Therefore, we need a second design next to the Luftgeist as carrier‑based planes. Unfortunately, the Wassergeist is not only an extremely good plane, but also an extremely thirsty plane. We will never have enough kerosine to tank off an air force consisting of only Wassergeister. Also therefore, we need a second design.


[1] The Gymnasium is the highest level of secondary education in Eiffelland.
[2] The Hauptschule is the lowest level of secondary education in Eiffelland.
[3] The Realschule is the middle level of secondary education in Eiffelland.

 

[Rheinbund]

Rabenau, Eiffelland
21 February 1957

Anja Sandmann looked like all the adolescents from Rabenau-Hassloch. Her skin looked grey, because of the cigarettes she smoked. She used make-up but exactly in the wrong way. It didn’t make her more beautiful; it only made her more vulgar. She kept her arms covered, so Weber could not see whether she took drugs or not. The fact that she frequented the Engel, her narrow pupils and her skinny appearance suggested that she did, however. Weber also saw some of the remnants of the beltlash in her face.

Weber decided to visit her at school instead of trying to find her in the Hasslocher scene. That was where he was interrogating her. He had also checked her file, so he knew that she had already been caught once with a small portion of heroin.

“So you visited the Tackler home last Thursday,” Weber said. “And when you told that you were carrying Roman’s child, Tackler beat you up with his belt. And that’s how you got that lash in your face.” Weber waited a few seconds, before he asked: “Why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Why would I? The cops will never believe somebody from Hassloch,” Anja said. She didn’t add to it what Weber already knew. People from Hassloch never went to the police; they settled their problems themselves. Most of the times in an aggressive way, often leading to long-lasting clan feuds. This could mean that Tackler (or his family) would get some strange visitors. Would that be a reason to warn Tackler?
“You know that Roman is dead?” Weber asked.
“Yes, I heard that last night,” Anja said. She had probably heard it in the Engel, Weber thought. How fast did rumours go?
“What kind of guy was Roman?” Weber asked.
“One of the tougher guys. Hard, aggressive, even compared with Hasslocher guys. He wasn’t really strong, but he managed to defeat guys who were one head taller and much more musculous than him by being extremely fast and extremely mean. Because of that all, I was highly surprised when I found out that he was from the Parkviertel,” Anja said.
“How did you find that out?” Weber asked.
“I got to know him as Roman Schleck in the Engel, but when I went to a party of his school with him, I heard that he was actually Roman Tackler,” Anja said. “And everybody in Rabenau knows who Tackler is.”
“But you never told that to anybody, until you became pregnant,” Weber said.
“Indeed. Why should I?” Anja replied.
“But when you became pregnant, you shouted it out in the Engel,” Weber said. “And you also shouted out your plans to blackmail Tackler with it.”
“Of course. The man wallows in money, then why shouldn’t he spend some of it for his grandchild?”
“But then he appeared to react in a completely different way than you expected. Right?” Weber said. “By the way, did you know that there is a punishment on blackmail?” After a few moments, he continued to talk. “I heard rumours that Roman killed Thomas Rischka half a year ago. What do you know about that?”
“Only what Roman told me about it,” Anja said. “He passed by on a moped when Rischka left the pub where he closed his deals, and emptied his submachine gun.”

That was indeed how the murder took place. And not only Rischka but also his body guards were killed. What kind of guy was this Roman Tackler that he had the nerves to carry out such an action at age 15?

“Did he ever tell where he got that submachine gun from? And the moped?” Weber asked.
“No, he never told anything about that,” Anja said.
“Do you by any chance know who Roman’s drug dealer was?” Weber asked.
“I wouldn’t know exactly, but it was not someone from the Engel,” Anja said.
“OK. Thank you,” Weber said.

Anja stood up and left the room.

Weber could not rule out the possibility that Anja would have killed Roman, but he had the feeling that there was a bigger fish to catch than a 16 year old heroin addict with bad make‑up. That was the reason why he didn’t ask for Anja’s alibi at the time slot of Roman’s death. He wanted to keep Anja’s trust.

Meanwhile, the results from the forensic team and the pathologist were available. The death cause didn’t surprise Weber: A heroin overdose. But there was some information that indicated that Roman hadn’t taken this overdose voluntarily. There were bruises all over his body, indicatiing that he was involved in a fight just before his death. But more importantly, there was no syringe. And then Weber realised that he had found Roman’s heroin supply complete with syringe and all other needed equipment in his pedestal. This meant that Roman had injected, or had been injected, heroin with a different syringe than his own. That combined with the indications of a fight before his death made it very plausible that Roman hadn’t applied the overdose himself. So he had been murdered.
And then there were three possible groups of culprits:

1. Anja, her family or some of her friends, as a revenge for the fact that he had made Anja pregnant and that his father refused to pay.
2. People who used to work for Rischka and wanted to take revenge for the killing of their master.
3. The people who ordered him to kill Rischka, because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Furthermore, there was one other very important question. Why did Roman kill Rischka? The fact that the weapon and the moped were given to him pointed at an order. Somebody ordered Roman to kill Rischka. But why Roman and not a professional killer? Was it really according to the plans that Roman succeeded? Or was it the plan that he would be killed by Rischka’s body guards? But if Roman really had to die, then why in such a complex way? Why hadn’t he been passed that overdose half a year ago? Or simply hit by a car or truck? Or was Rischka not Roman’s first kill, i.e. did he already have experience and with that a name, so that he was already a professional killer? Or was it somebody else than Roman who killed Rischka, and did Roman take the credits? But also then, why wasn’t he killed half a year ago?

The most plausible explanation would be that Roman wasn’t supposed to kill Rischka, but was only sent as a warning. Probably Roman wasn’t even supposed to survive the attack. But then totally unexpected he succeeded and decapitated Rischka’s organisation, creating room for that new organisation.

And then there was this watch, found at the place where Roman’s body had been found. It was a watch from a brand that wasn’t sold in Eiffelland. It was a watch that had been produced in the Chetnik Empire. What did that mean? Weber knew that a group of Chetniks, calling themselves Nazis, had fled from the Chetnik Empire to Eiffelland, because they were too extremist even according to Chetnik standards. But why would they be interested in a drug addict in a province city? Not for ideological reasons. The only way for them to survive in Eiffelland would be to offer their services to criminal organisations, or become a criminal organisation themselves. But then they had to shed off their ideological feathers.

Weber had made himself a scheme on his blackboard. At the end of his working day, Stresemann walked in. He looked at the blackboard, and whistled between his teeth.

“It looks like we are in quite a shitty situation,” he said.