Kastoria
06/04/1954
1945 hours
Thanasis Laskaris was looking outside the window of his office, overlooking the Revolution Square. He was looking at the people passing near the statue of the “Heroes of the Revolution”, a concrete statue showing three soldiers of the Red Guards that were preparing to attack, when he heard a loud knock on the door. He turned around and took a second to look at the austerely decorated office. On the desk, in front of some files and nearby a lamp stood a small bronze bust of Agapios Iordanos. The walls that were adjacent to the one with the window had two huge bookshelves, while near the door the official portrait of Laskaris was framed. A soldier wearing the service uniform of the Department of State Security, his epaulets showing that he was a captain entered the room.
“Comrade Warden, Commissar Samaras wants to see you.”
“Let him enter.”
After a few minutes, the former Premier of the Socialist Republic, Chairman of the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] International and General Commissar of the Department of State Security entered the room. As Samaras, a small, balding man, wearing the uniform of the DSS, entered the room, he saluted by the book, waiting for Laskaris to welcome him. When he saw him, Laskaris couldn’t help himself but smile, as he knew that all those formalities coming from Samaras were just sarcasm, making fun of the fact that his young protégée, Laskaris, now held the highest office in the state, while he was now just a clerk of the secret service.
“Come sit, old friend!” said Laskaris smiling. Samaras seated himself on a chair in front of the Warden’s desk and presented him with three portfolios.
“Here is a list of collaborators of the Mezhists from Estland. I have added not only collaborators of the government, but also possible… let’s say friends… of a future German Mezhist movement. In general, high class, or upper middle class persons. They must disappear… Any potential roots of the Mezhist movements must be destroyed. We need to be sure that the Commonwealth will be a bridge between us and Cantignia…a stable bridge,” said Samaras as he gave one portfolio to Laskaris.
“I see,” said Thanasis as he looked at the list of names, thoughtfully. “We need to make sure that what we do with them,” he said as he was waving the file, “will not descend into a general Dane hunt. We must be sure that it won’t even be seen as a hunt of any kind. We must work in complete secrecy.”
“I think that we may stop it from descending into a Dane hunt, but I don’t believe that we may still keep it in complete secrecy, as the Eiffellander and Asylan agents are very toady and always near Kammerschen, but also trying to bring their capitalist machinations into the new country that we try to create. For them, it would be the best if this civil war would be lengthened as much as possible. They are like vampires who live from this kind of situation. If they cannot win and create a capitalist, so called democracy in the Commonwealth, they will surely do anything to bring this state into a perpetual civil war, because they are afraid of stable socialist societies,” said Samaras darkly.
“We need to make everyone see that the Danish people, the workers, the lower class is not supporting the Christiansborg government. That they would join the fight if they would have the chance. The whole world must understand that the average Danish worker would join the revolution if he would be sure that the revolutionaries won’t harm him, simply because he is Danish. Everyone must understand that the language that you talk, or the ethnic group you are part of doesn’t matter in the long run. What matters the most is the social class you are part of. Look at the so called brain drain from Danmark to Sikandara, Samaras. Look at that so called intelligentsia. When I was younger, I always believed that education makes you emphasize more with the human suffering and I was so naïve when I believed that. Look at all those who run to Sikandara. The schooling system in the Danish Imperium was something that only the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy could afford. Do you even think that if they couldn’t have left they would have accepted to work hand in hand with the common folk? They would have been the first that would have tried to sabotage the socialist economy! Look even at the country they are fleeing towards! Of all nations that are around them, Wiese, Cantignia, Tiburtina, Eiffelland, us, countries that represent the whole political specter, they are running to Sikandara! This country is the most similar to their autocratic style. They don’t simply run because they want to save their lives. They go to Sikandara because there they will preserve their power, wealth and elite status! I will not even be surprised if I would find out that when the war will be over, the Sikandari will declare that a government in exile would be formed in Shahdara!” Only after he stopped, he observed that he was shouting. He took a deep breath and he apologized to Samaras.
“Comrade, it is clear. The old elites must be fully replaced by new, more progressive… more human ones.”
“Exactly, Samaras. I want you to send my thoughts regarding the elites and the brain drain to Sikandara to Kammerschen. What is in the other two portfolios?” he asked pointing at the other two files in Samaras’ hand.
“Copies of the same list. The first one will be sent to Antipater Lekkas, one to Leonidas Paraskevopoulos and the last one to Chrysanthos Rallis. “
“Good… Also, regarding the Danes being seen as part of the revolution… I want your department to start a propaganda campaign in Estland. I want to see flyers and posters that celebrate the unity between Germans and Danes everywhere. They must understand that they must work together. Tell Lekkas, Rallis and Paraskevopoulos that if someone would be caught of harming Danes just because of the ethnicity, they are to be executed immediately.”
“Yes, comrade,” said Samaras as he shook the hand of the Warden and left his office.
Reval District
06/04/1954
2010 hours
I told Franz that such things will happen. In such moments, hunts for what the people perceive as being the enemy, are impossible to stop. What angers me the most is the presence of the two agents, Savon and Nielsen. They are like a pain the ass. I try with all my efforts to make Franz concentrate on the military offensive, but those two immediately intervene and try to steer him away from that, starting to talk about witch hunts. They are like small little children. They don’t understand that in a war, people still die; yet, they come here preaching about a puritan revolution… it’s like they are the communist activists that say stories about how everyone joins together and fights the oppressors and their utopic revolution ends with the whole people united, with the oppressors defeated and with no blood spilled. They must be brought down to earth. There is no such thing. Even in Carentania, that is a model for socialism, you still have the original Mezhists that said that the people were so tainted by socialism that they must all be exterminated. You have the Phalangists in Tyrrhenia; you have the emperor in Yujin. There never is unity; people still have to die. THEY STILL DIE!
In the last few days, as we marched north, I saw a girl. A small child, I believe she was no more than ten years old. She was standing beside the road, near her mother’s dead body. She was shot in the stomach… I believe it was in front of the eyes of her daughter. The girl was crying. I ordered one of my men to take her and send her to one of the medics, but the girl held on to her mother’s corpse and she started screaming as Alexis was pulling her away, yelling: “But she is still alive! She has to be alive! She moved!” and crying and yelling and crying even more. I couldn’t stand it, so I started walking faster to distance myself from the scene. But I couldn’t escape it. The woman’s face and the girl’s crying were stuck in my head. I made a mistake trying to continuously recall the woman’s face. When I don’t speak to anyone else, I think of her. I try to recall her face and the girl’s crying. I know it’s bad for me, but I can’t help it. Even if my ration says that I must forget this episode as quick as possible, I simply can’t… I start to feel guilty of everything that we are doing here if I don’t think of that. If I’m not recalling the whole scene, I feel like I’m being ignorant to what is happening here. Even if I try to say to myself that it’s a small sacrifice compared to the bright future of this country, I sometimes start to ask myself if it’s necessary… or what is actually the red line, from which we can say that it’s enough? But we are in the middle of a revolution! PEOPLE STILL HAVE TO DIE!
I can’t stand it anymore. But still, I have a duty. Not only to myself. I currently feel like I’m less than nothing…. A bug still has more reasons to shadow this earth than me… but still I promised the Germans my support. I want all of this to end. I want to return to Ayios Andronikos. If I could travel back in time… to be a kid again, like that girl… I never knew my dad. He was killed in a Phalangist terrorist attack in Palekastro, but at least, I would have loved to feel that loving care from my mother a little more… but the Mezhists in Danmark killed her when she went to Christiansborg to help her sister move to Tyrrhenia. She was killed, and I remained in the care of the state… and I feel like one of the shittiest person alive after this “care” from the state and what I had to do to repay my debt to it. Horrible… But I want this to end as quickly as possible and I sank so low in shit that I start to have very polarized feelings regarding it: sometimes I feel the stress, the depression, the pressures of all those actions that take place around me, but sometimes I feel that I sank so low that it doesn’t matter. That I am like a rat for the society and I must be one of the freest persons around, as I feel that I disappointed so many people that no one puts any hopes in me. Or am I actually the one disappointed by myself? Enough of this. The revolution still takes place around me and people are dying. I cannot stop it, but nor did I start it, so I shouldn’t feel any remorse… but if I shouldn’t feel… why do it feel? What of all the children like that girl that I have brought in such despair? NO! STOP IT! SHUT UP! A whole civil war takes place around you. PEOPLE ARE DYING! You cannot stop it and that’s it. I can do only one thing: make sure that it ends as fast as possible. For that I needed Franz to be fully concentrated on the offensive. I called Alexis to me.
“Do you remember the plan regarding the foreign agents?” I asked him as he came to me. Immediately after I questioned him, he became pale.
“The kill and then run one?”
“Yes. Next time Savon or Nielsen intervenes to talk to Franz about anything regarding the Dane hunt. Do it. I will write tonight a paper for you that will let you return to Tyrrhenia unhindered. After you pull the trigger, don’t stop until you reach Dhekelia and then lay low.“
06/04/1954
1945 hours
Thanasis Laskaris was looking outside the window of his office, overlooking the Revolution Square. He was looking at the people passing near the statue of the “Heroes of the Revolution”, a concrete statue showing three soldiers of the Red Guards that were preparing to attack, when he heard a loud knock on the door. He turned around and took a second to look at the austerely decorated office. On the desk, in front of some files and nearby a lamp stood a small bronze bust of Agapios Iordanos. The walls that were adjacent to the one with the window had two huge bookshelves, while near the door the official portrait of Laskaris was framed. A soldier wearing the service uniform of the Department of State Security, his epaulets showing that he was a captain entered the room.
“Comrade Warden, Commissar Samaras wants to see you.”
“Let him enter.”
After a few minutes, the former Premier of the Socialist Republic, Chairman of the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] International and General Commissar of the Department of State Security entered the room. As Samaras, a small, balding man, wearing the uniform of the DSS, entered the room, he saluted by the book, waiting for Laskaris to welcome him. When he saw him, Laskaris couldn’t help himself but smile, as he knew that all those formalities coming from Samaras were just sarcasm, making fun of the fact that his young protégée, Laskaris, now held the highest office in the state, while he was now just a clerk of the secret service.
“Come sit, old friend!” said Laskaris smiling. Samaras seated himself on a chair in front of the Warden’s desk and presented him with three portfolios.
“Here is a list of collaborators of the Mezhists from Estland. I have added not only collaborators of the government, but also possible… let’s say friends… of a future German Mezhist movement. In general, high class, or upper middle class persons. They must disappear… Any potential roots of the Mezhist movements must be destroyed. We need to be sure that the Commonwealth will be a bridge between us and Cantignia…a stable bridge,” said Samaras as he gave one portfolio to Laskaris.
“I see,” said Thanasis as he looked at the list of names, thoughtfully. “We need to make sure that what we do with them,” he said as he was waving the file, “will not descend into a general Dane hunt. We must be sure that it won’t even be seen as a hunt of any kind. We must work in complete secrecy.”
“I think that we may stop it from descending into a Dane hunt, but I don’t believe that we may still keep it in complete secrecy, as the Eiffellander and Asylan agents are very toady and always near Kammerschen, but also trying to bring their capitalist machinations into the new country that we try to create. For them, it would be the best if this civil war would be lengthened as much as possible. They are like vampires who live from this kind of situation. If they cannot win and create a capitalist, so called democracy in the Commonwealth, they will surely do anything to bring this state into a perpetual civil war, because they are afraid of stable socialist societies,” said Samaras darkly.
“We need to make everyone see that the Danish people, the workers, the lower class is not supporting the Christiansborg government. That they would join the fight if they would have the chance. The whole world must understand that the average Danish worker would join the revolution if he would be sure that the revolutionaries won’t harm him, simply because he is Danish. Everyone must understand that the language that you talk, or the ethnic group you are part of doesn’t matter in the long run. What matters the most is the social class you are part of. Look at the so called brain drain from Danmark to Sikandara, Samaras. Look at that so called intelligentsia. When I was younger, I always believed that education makes you emphasize more with the human suffering and I was so naïve when I believed that. Look at all those who run to Sikandara. The schooling system in the Danish Imperium was something that only the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy could afford. Do you even think that if they couldn’t have left they would have accepted to work hand in hand with the common folk? They would have been the first that would have tried to sabotage the socialist economy! Look even at the country they are fleeing towards! Of all nations that are around them, Wiese, Cantignia, Tiburtina, Eiffelland, us, countries that represent the whole political specter, they are running to Sikandara! This country is the most similar to their autocratic style. They don’t simply run because they want to save their lives. They go to Sikandara because there they will preserve their power, wealth and elite status! I will not even be surprised if I would find out that when the war will be over, the Sikandari will declare that a government in exile would be formed in Shahdara!” Only after he stopped, he observed that he was shouting. He took a deep breath and he apologized to Samaras.
“Comrade, it is clear. The old elites must be fully replaced by new, more progressive… more human ones.”
“Exactly, Samaras. I want you to send my thoughts regarding the elites and the brain drain to Sikandara to Kammerschen. What is in the other two portfolios?” he asked pointing at the other two files in Samaras’ hand.
“Copies of the same list. The first one will be sent to Antipater Lekkas, one to Leonidas Paraskevopoulos and the last one to Chrysanthos Rallis. “
“Good… Also, regarding the Danes being seen as part of the revolution… I want your department to start a propaganda campaign in Estland. I want to see flyers and posters that celebrate the unity between Germans and Danes everywhere. They must understand that they must work together. Tell Lekkas, Rallis and Paraskevopoulos that if someone would be caught of harming Danes just because of the ethnicity, they are to be executed immediately.”
“Yes, comrade,” said Samaras as he shook the hand of the Warden and left his office.
Reval District
06/04/1954
2010 hours
I told Franz that such things will happen. In such moments, hunts for what the people perceive as being the enemy, are impossible to stop. What angers me the most is the presence of the two agents, Savon and Nielsen. They are like a pain the ass. I try with all my efforts to make Franz concentrate on the military offensive, but those two immediately intervene and try to steer him away from that, starting to talk about witch hunts. They are like small little children. They don’t understand that in a war, people still die; yet, they come here preaching about a puritan revolution… it’s like they are the communist activists that say stories about how everyone joins together and fights the oppressors and their utopic revolution ends with the whole people united, with the oppressors defeated and with no blood spilled. They must be brought down to earth. There is no such thing. Even in Carentania, that is a model for socialism, you still have the original Mezhists that said that the people were so tainted by socialism that they must all be exterminated. You have the Phalangists in Tyrrhenia; you have the emperor in Yujin. There never is unity; people still have to die. THEY STILL DIE!
In the last few days, as we marched north, I saw a girl. A small child, I believe she was no more than ten years old. She was standing beside the road, near her mother’s dead body. She was shot in the stomach… I believe it was in front of the eyes of her daughter. The girl was crying. I ordered one of my men to take her and send her to one of the medics, but the girl held on to her mother’s corpse and she started screaming as Alexis was pulling her away, yelling: “But she is still alive! She has to be alive! She moved!” and crying and yelling and crying even more. I couldn’t stand it, so I started walking faster to distance myself from the scene. But I couldn’t escape it. The woman’s face and the girl’s crying were stuck in my head. I made a mistake trying to continuously recall the woman’s face. When I don’t speak to anyone else, I think of her. I try to recall her face and the girl’s crying. I know it’s bad for me, but I can’t help it. Even if my ration says that I must forget this episode as quick as possible, I simply can’t… I start to feel guilty of everything that we are doing here if I don’t think of that. If I’m not recalling the whole scene, I feel like I’m being ignorant to what is happening here. Even if I try to say to myself that it’s a small sacrifice compared to the bright future of this country, I sometimes start to ask myself if it’s necessary… or what is actually the red line, from which we can say that it’s enough? But we are in the middle of a revolution! PEOPLE STILL HAVE TO DIE!
I can’t stand it anymore. But still, I have a duty. Not only to myself. I currently feel like I’m less than nothing…. A bug still has more reasons to shadow this earth than me… but still I promised the Germans my support. I want all of this to end. I want to return to Ayios Andronikos. If I could travel back in time… to be a kid again, like that girl… I never knew my dad. He was killed in a Phalangist terrorist attack in Palekastro, but at least, I would have loved to feel that loving care from my mother a little more… but the Mezhists in Danmark killed her when she went to Christiansborg to help her sister move to Tyrrhenia. She was killed, and I remained in the care of the state… and I feel like one of the shittiest person alive after this “care” from the state and what I had to do to repay my debt to it. Horrible… But I want this to end as quickly as possible and I sank so low in shit that I start to have very polarized feelings regarding it: sometimes I feel the stress, the depression, the pressures of all those actions that take place around me, but sometimes I feel that I sank so low that it doesn’t matter. That I am like a rat for the society and I must be one of the freest persons around, as I feel that I disappointed so many people that no one puts any hopes in me. Or am I actually the one disappointed by myself? Enough of this. The revolution still takes place around me and people are dying. I cannot stop it, but nor did I start it, so I shouldn’t feel any remorse… but if I shouldn’t feel… why do it feel? What of all the children like that girl that I have brought in such despair? NO! STOP IT! SHUT UP! A whole civil war takes place around you. PEOPLE ARE DYING! You cannot stop it and that’s it. I can do only one thing: make sure that it ends as fast as possible. For that I needed Franz to be fully concentrated on the offensive. I called Alexis to me.
“Do you remember the plan regarding the foreign agents?” I asked him as he came to me. Immediately after I questioned him, he became pale.
“The kill and then run one?”
“Yes. Next time Savon or Nielsen intervenes to talk to Franz about anything regarding the Dane hunt. Do it. I will write tonight a paper for you that will let you return to Tyrrhenia unhindered. After you pull the trigger, don’t stop until you reach Dhekelia and then lay low.“