The Falcons of Malta Read online

  The Reich Without Hilter

  Volume 1: The Falcons of Malta

  Scott Palter

  Mikle Rohde

  The Reich Without Hitler

  Volume 1

  The Falcons of Malta

  ©Final Sword Productions LLC, 2018

  ISBN: 978-1-938339-23-3

  By Scott Palter with Mike Rohde

  Content Assistance from: Markus Baur, Marco Pertoni

  Other Assistance: Igor Bunimovich, Erik Fischer, Duane Oldsen

  Editing: Jennifer Seiden Sadler

  Layout, Cover and Maps: Sam Pray

  Historical note – The historic July 17th promotion list has moved up to June 22nd.

  Soviet moves into Romania and the Baltic states are also somewhat altered.

  In the second book of this series, it will be revealed that an order regarding airships was in fact not carried out.

  Free source material will be available at http://store.genreconnections.com/alternate-history-1/

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Untitled

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Untitled

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Afterword

  Dramatis Personae

  Glossary

  1

  0413 hours Central Euro Time [all future times are CET unless otherwise indicated],

  24 June 1940

  Berlin

  * * *

  Reinhardt Heydrich was a careful man. His house guards were handpicked for personal loyalty. The sounds of submachine gun fire as they died defending him gave him time to awaken. With the war won, it seemed Himmler no longer had need of him. However, one could die with a certain dignity. So, he had his pants on and his pistol out as the heavy thuds of the assassination squad sounded through his house up to his bedroom door. His main thought was thankfulness that his wife was away visiting family.

  “Reinhardt, it’s not quite what you think.” That was Nebe’s voice. Nebe was Kripo. Himmler wouldn’t send Kripo for a liquidation mission. He and Himmler both trusted Nebe’s professional competence, but it ended there. The man was a career policeman who had opportunistically joined the Nazis, not one of the glassy-eyed, blond fanatics Himmler would have sent from SS House.

  “Come in slowly. Without the pistol.” Heydrich was sardonically amused. Had one of the half-assed coup plots come off? If so, could he stall for time until it collapsed?

  Nebe slowly entered the room after calling out first. He was in full police uniform, but had a Party armband on. He was making a point and Heydrich recognized it. “Coup in whose name?”

  Nebe kept his hands in plain sight. “As I said, not what you think. The Führer is dead. Himmler’s quacks seem to have poisoned him. Went into convulsions on a flight back from Paris. Pilot diverted to nearest main field. Happened to be Kesselring’s HQ. Kesselring put a security lid on it. Anyway, Reichsmarschall Göring’s in as Chancellor and Führer. General Beck’s back. Generals Halder and Gestapo Müller are with us. Bormann, Hess, and Goebbels are dead already.” Nebe stopped. He seemed to be listening for something. Heydrich listened as well. The sound was distant but clear. Artillery fire. Artillery fire in Berlin. Nebe’s face lit with a frozen smile. “SS House and Party HQ. Himmler will be dead by morning. Göring wanted to settle scores with you, but I talked him around. Said you could be useful. The Air Marshal is willing to see you. He, Halder, and Beck are waiting. Which do you prefer, death or a job interview?”

  Heydrich’s response was to safe his pistol and finish dressing. He hoped he’d be given time to shave as well. Always best to look sharp for an interview. He could show them where they needed him. He didn’t exactly expect them to trust him, but if Nebe had gotten him over THAT hurdle the rest was doable. Reinhardt Heydrich was a man who prided himself on landing on his feet.

  * * *

  [earlier]

  1923 hours

  23 June 1940

  airfield, occupied Belgium

  * * *

  Albert Kesselring, commander of Second Air Fleet, was a man to grasp opportunities out of events other people saw as career disasters. He had a dead Hitler on his hands and a planeload of hysterical flunkies. He ordered his adjutant to round up a dozen reliable men. The ex-Führer’s body was put on ice, literally, in a meat freezer. The flunkies were herded into a supply bunker, locked in, and, for the moment, ignored. The base was sealed. No people in or out. No exceptions. No comm traffic beyond routine acknowledgement of receipt of messages. He himself took off with his best multiengine pilot for a flight to Berlin. This was the sort of news one delivered in person.

  * * *

  0422 hours,

  24 June 1940,

  Central Berlin – Gestapo/SS HQ

  * * *

  Walter Schellenberg was back at his office and working late in the early morning hours. An alert assistant on the night shift had called him in. Something big was up. Gestapo Müller had pulled key people out of the building for an unspecified “major operation”. Calls around to Schellenberg’s usual informants in the bureaucracy had produced chaotic responses. There appeared to be a second Blood Purge in progress, but no one had details beyond wild rumors about the Führer’s death, Göring, and the Army. Sadly, the situation seemed to be clarifying. The Army had surrounded the entire block. There was a tank outside with a thrown track covering the main entrance. It was making a lot of noise. So was its machine gun, which was killing anyone trying to exit the building. Was the Army staging a coup? Himmler was unreachable. The Führer was coming back from Paris. Heydrich was missing but police callbox messages seemed to suggest a gun battle around his house a few minutes earlier. Schellenberg kept dialing, hoping to find someone in authority.

  * * *

  0515 hours

  24 June 1940

  Army HQ, Berlin

  * * *

  Heydrich was smiling by the time he reached the conference room. All his surmises had been confirmed. The outer offices had army majors issuing clear instructions to secure this or that location. The “plan” was mostly improvisation, but this sort of competent staff work was an old Prussian specialty. The inner offices had senior colonels and generals of the Army and Air Force. They were huddled in little circles whispering while castin
g furtive glances at each other and shocked glances on seeing him in full SS uniform. It was just as he thought. The top people were clueless. They did need him. They just didn’t know it yet.

  The conference room had Army Generals Beck and Halder, Chancellor-Designate Göring, and Gestapo Müller. Trust Müller to land on his feet. He’d been anti-Nazi until the day of the takeover and then had turned coat without a moment’s look back. He was also Heydrich’s subordinate. Time to remind him of that. Heydrich ignored the three, senior people and dealt with Müller first. Heydrich had used the drive over to write out some fast notes. “Here’s a list. Try to get these out of HQ alive. We’ll need them later. Now off you go and see if you can keep the Army from blowing up the card files. We’ll need them also. The next two weeks are going to be chaotic. The official story is a Second Blood Purge. Himmler and the rest assassinated the Führer. We are cleaning house. Tell your informers we are paying for information on the lesser members of the plot.”

  Müller stood there blinking. He was unsure whose orders to take. The two army generals were turning red in the face, about to explode. Göring had looked uncomfortable and apprehensive. Now he looked confident. He was catching where Heydrich was leading. He drew up to his full height and in a command voice barked, “You’ve been given an order by a superior officer. Execute it at once!” Göring then turned and offered his hand to Heydrich. Escorted him to a chair and loudly directed a hovering minion to get his “friend” coffee and brandy.

  Heydrich waited for his coffee. Neither general was quite able to get beyond sputtering and glaring, so he saw that he would have to open the discussion. Amateurs. “Gentlemen, I am aware that I may leave this meeting feet first; therefore, dispense with the threats. You don’t trust me.” Heydrich shrugged. “I don’t care. You need me. You haven’t even answered the key questions. From the look of you, they haven’t occurred to you.” Now he was met with two blank faces and a smile from Göring. “Precisely what is happening here? So far, what I see is a half-assed opportunistic coup by you as representative of the old elites. The Führer’s dead. The Party is not especially popular. What, you’ll bring back the Kaiser with a regency council?” He saw a half-sheepish look from Halder and a belligerent one from Beck. Right again. “Won’t work. Would have in ‘32, ’33… maybe ‘34. Hindenburg was as popular as Hitler. Also the nation was seven years younger. Nazis were in many ways a youth movement. A lot of our supporters were too young to matter. Hindenburg’s dead. A new generation has come of age. A mostly Nazi one. You have the colonels. We have the corporals and lieutenants. The twenty-somethings. Adolph Hitler saved them from the Depression. Restored Germany’s honor. Defeated France in 60 days. Victory without an endless, blood-drenched war. He’s a demigod. Your only chance is to take power in his name.” He paused to see if ANY of this was sinking in. He had Göring. Halder was more than halfway there. Beck was going to be the problem.

  “General Beck, how do you propose to govern without a coalition with the Nazis?”

  Beck was livid. “We will give orders and they will be obeyed. The best people are all with us.”

  Heydrich repressed the urge to laugh at the old fool. He didn’t bother to hide his smile. “Yes, they mostly are. Military. Industry. The bureaucracy. Middle-aged and older people of experience and wisdom. Same was true in Petrograd in 1918. Remind me how that turned out for your lot.” He let the shock sink in with Beck before continuing. “Shoot me. You have a pistol. I presume you were trained in its use. Shoot five thousand more like me. Now tell me how you get the young, ambitious ones to follow your orders? Remember your choice in 1933? Us or the reds. Choice hasn’t changed. Those are the only two groups with mass appeal. The Party as an institution may be unpopular right now—lot of petty tyrannies by the Gauleiters and Kreisleiters. The Movement is popular and just acquired a dead deity. We need your expertise. You need our ability to mobilize the masses. Göring here is a good front man for our union. He’s a Kaiser-era officer. A war hero. Married originally into the aristocracy. Knows how to attend your parties and show proper manners. Yet he’s an old Party comrade. Marched at the Feldherrnhalle. Nazi Speaker of the Reichstag. Built a Nazi Air Force. He’s the link pin. However, he’s not a nuts-and-bolts bureaucrat. You need someone to assemble a new Nazi cabinet….”

  Beck started to explode. Halder cut in over him. “How much of the cabinet?” Halder was sensing the outlines and was ready to bargain.

  “All of it. This is theater. The news photo should have a cabinet in Party uniform. You’ll get your power at the next level down. Secretaries of State, ministry chancellors, undersecretaries. It’s your general staff system. The top man has titles and you appoint a few competent professionals to do the actual work. We’ve got to show the mid-level Party people that their career paths are still there. That’s part of why a Blood Purge. If we shoot every Gauleiter and Minister, the new Führer and I get to appoint new ones who will be properly grateful for their elevation. We need jobs for people who don’t have vons in their name, who don’t have degrees from the best universities.”

  Göring suddenly was showing signs of life. “Shoot ALL the Gauleiters and Ministers?”

  “Oh, save a few protégées. But each one you save is one less promotion to give out. Now where you need me is Göring won’t do the scut work. He’ll be the public face. Make speeches, attend functions, do all the ceremonial. But day-to-day you need a Stalin. That’s me. Someone who knows the mid-levels of the Movement. Someone who will handle the administrative and personnel details. For example, have any of you thought how you are going to stage the Führer’s funeral?” He saw three blank looks. Typical. “That is what will cement your initial hold on power. We need a stage production more elaborate than the Nürnberg rallies. Where’s Speer? Someone get him for me. We’ve got to clean up Berlin for the lying in state, the parade, the mausoleum construction. We’ll need something bigger and grander than Lenin’s tomb in Moscow. You’ve killed off Goebbels. Good. I’ll need Leni Riefenstahl to help organize this.”

  He had them. They saw how little they understood. Göring showed he was following by asking the obvious question, “Stalin, you say. So, you expect to overthrow us one by one like he did?” Heydrich outright laughed. He HAD them. “They let him. Paid no attention while they plotted against each other. Are you three THAT stupid? No. You’ll stay allied and watch me like a hawk. That’s fine. My place is the next echelon down from the three of you. Me. Todt. Speer. Riefenstahl. Müller. Göring, you created the Gestapo. Have them follow me night and day. I don’t mind. I pride myself on landing on my feet. I was Himmler’s minion. Now I’m yours.”

  The meeting went on toward midday, but the essential workings of the new regime were already in operation.

  2

  0800 hours

  24 June 1940

  Frankfurt on Oder

  * * *

  Klaus Steiner was hiding his teenage angst by following orders. A leader in his HJ unit had woken his entire house to get him up, in uniform, and moving. Something big was happening and he had been “mobilized”. Klaus was a gawky 17-year-old. He’d “joined” the HJ because trying to opt out got you noticed, got you in trouble. His parents’ attitude was keep your head down and do what you were told. Klaus was quite in agreement but for different reasons. Coping with his growing body and changing voice was more than he could handle. Actually asserting himself in front of others was beyond the possible. All he wanted to do was avoid being noticed, avoid having to explain or justify anything. Standing in ranks or following simple orders was just fine with him. And now, here he was, on a commandeered municipal bus with a scrum of HJ, Party members, SA, and the odd SS trooper, headed for Berlin. Headed to do what, no one was quite sure. Someone at Party HQ had gotten a cryptic call from someone supposedly on Reichsmarschall Göring’s staff to turn out people for a “major operation” in Berlin. Operation to do what? Why? Apparently, people didn’t ask questions anymore. The local Party leader had requisition
ed every bus he could find and off they were going. Klaus was content to let the important people make sense out of it.

  * * *

  0915 hours

  24 June 1940

  Kesselring’s HQ airfield, occupied Belgium

  * * *

  Albert Speer had been moping. The Führer was dead. Hitler was his patron and without his support he was just another young architect without prospects. He was locked in a supply shed awaiting some unknown but probably nasty fate. The Führer’s medical staff had been pulled out a bit less than an hour ago (the shed had poor lighting, so he was not exactly sure he had read the time on his watch correctly). Some forty minutes later, there had been the sound of machinegun fire. Now suddenly the door was banged open, and a tall, blonde, immaculately dressed SS officer was calling his name. The daylight hitting the half-dark hut was near-blinding. Everyone else in the shed edged away from him as if he had suddenly shown plague symptoms. Speer fought to show a bit of personal courage (which he was not feeling) and walked toward the SS officer. The officer compared his face to a printed page. Yes, he was himself. He was then asked if he had a briefcase or other personal luggage. He pointed and an SS sergeant fetched the portfolio. Then one large SS man grabbed each of his arms and he was hauled onto a transport plane whose engines were already running. Speer plopped himself down, letting his face show his fears and doubts. No one offered a word of explanation but he was provided a flask of coffee laced with brandy. So, this is what being a prisoner of the state was like?