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Pov of Adam Dressler
2-26-January-1921
A long row of traitors tied to posts was an image that had cost a great deal of blood, but we had finally achieved it.
Defeating the socialists had been a headache in the Sudetenland, especially when absolute chaos struck us with all its force. Even so, we managed to survive everything that had happened.
The weak Kaiser had been overthrown by his own supporters and had fled to another country in search of refuge while everything collapsed around him.
The army split almost all at once. Once we were integrated into Germany, the military limits the country had to respect regarding the maximum number of troops it could keep mobilized began to apply, so enormous numbers of Austrian soldiers had been demobilized.
To that, naturally, was added the conflict that had emerged between Czechs and Germans when the new borders began to be divided.
There were numerous Czech nationalists who continued fighting to recover what they called their lands, but the enormous flow of veterans that had arrived in our region had changed things considerably in our favor.
With all that chaos, a good part of the local arsenals remained closed under the control of the army units that were still quartered. But when Germany began demobilizing those men, we were able to loot practically all the arsenals in the area.
We obtained valuable quantities of ammunition, as well as many more weapons with which to continue fighting through the streets.
We managed to push the Czechs quite far away and also break the pressure of the socialist militias.
Our leader had been far too indulgent with the churches for a long time because of his fervent religiosity and his insistence on protecting them completely, but we finally demanded that they do their part in the defense of our homeland.
It was enough to threaten to abandon the protection of the churches for the local religious institutions to finally begin cooperating with our effort.
They provided us with food from their reserves, gave funds to our cause and offered medical treatment to our men.
Thanks to that, we were finally able to attack the socialist bastions in the workers' districts.
After several days of fighting, we managed to capture the main leaders of the socialist militias, although many of them had already died during the clashes.
The struggle had been going on for days, but we had finally triumphed.
Our numbers had increased considerably thanks to the demobilized veterans, which allowed us to block the routes used by the socialists to bring food in from the areas they still controlled.
We only had to wait.
We wore them down and let them starve until we finally secured their surrender.
''Fire!'' someone shouted while making a signal with his hand.
The two long rows of men, one kneeling and the other standing, fired practically at the same time.
Numerous detonations echoed around us and I watched as the bodies of the executed men shook violently under the enormous number of bullets they received.
Blood began to run while their bodies were left suspended by the ropes once their legs stopped supporting them.
''Get rid of these traitors. A hole in some forgotten place is more than enough for this kind of men, who did nothing but make the lives of their own brothers miserable while others tried to expel us from our homes'' I said while the members of the Freikorps began cutting the ropes that kept the bodies suspended.
''And now what?'' one of my subordinates asked while looking at the destroyed surroundings with an expression that showed he was still processing the cost of our victory.
''We have to see. First, we will have to evaluate what we can and cannot do. The situation remains extremely tense, and it is enough to look around to understand it.''
I placed my hands behind my back.
''We had a mayor who refused to do anything, while the police themselves had to act on their own to help us fight those filthy socialists. Clearly, a man like that cannot provide the strong leadership we need in moments like these.''
I began walking slowly among the remains of the buildings.
''Besides, the Kaiser did not allow elections to be held before he fell. For now, we will have to assume self-government of this area until the competent authorities arrive and we can hand over command to them properly. After that, we will have to wait to know how we will be able to choose our own leaders.''
The area was completely destroyed.
It had been the scene of numerous clashes between both sides and, as expected, the fighting with grenades and the few artillery pieces we had managed to bring into the streets had left a good part of the city reduced to rubble.
''Reconstruction would be ideal, but we do not have the necessary resources to do it. Without funds or materials, it will be difficult to raise our homes again. Our currency is not even legal tender for the moment, so doing business using the old Austrian crown will not be simple either'' I said while continuing to walk.
Although we had won the conflict in our area and the socialist militias were beginning to be crushed elsewhere with the help of the German army and numerous Freikorps, the same old thing was happening again.
The old elites were coming out of their hiding places and trying to return to power as if nothing had happened.
They were trying to recover their old posts by taking advantage of the fact that, for the moment, practically no real government existed. There were only some military governors sent mainly by the State of Prussia to try to organize how the former Austrian territories would be divided and administered.
Several days passed.
Then someone shot the mayor of our city when he tried to order the police to disarm the Freikorps.
His attempt to restore normality ended in the worst possible way.
He was shot five times in the back and ended up bleeding to death in front of his own family, since no one lifted a finger when he was shot. Only his family screamed in terror, but no one offered him any help beyond a cold stare.
That was why I temporarily assumed some duties related to removing rubble and transferring many of the bodies of the dead that had been trapped in hard-to-reach areas because of the intensity of the fighting.
We also had to try, somehow, to keep food arriving in the city. One thing was to obtain food for our own forces using whatever means we had available, but something very different was feeding an entire city that, after the fighting, had been left quite disconnected from Austria-Bohemia's granary system.
Finally, after several days of chaos, the men sent by the Prussian governor arrived.
The governor was a Junker, although we still did not know whether he was one of those filthy Junkers who created more problems than solutions or a Junker like Germany's national hero.
But, instead of bringing bureaucrats and immediately beginning to reorganize everything, his men simply forced us to hand over part of the weapons we had looted from the Austrian arsenal. In exchange, we were pardoned for all the crimes we might have committed during the defense of our homeland, a homeland that, in reality, no longer even existed.
It did not take us too long to discover that this Junker was more part of the problem than of the solution.
Shortly afterward, he began filling the Sudetenland with former German military men, placing them as provisional governors and mayors. These men quickly began making life impossible for the Freikorps.
They continued to see us as a force outside their control, and that made them nervous. They did not like the idea of armed groups existing that were capable of defending themselves from that clique of corrupt officers who, little by little, were clinging to power while keeping Germany's legitimate leader under constant pressure to force him to allow them to preserve their positions.
Karl had already warned in his guide that something like this would end up happening.
And that was precisely what we could not allow.
However, in such a moment of instability, we could not turn our backs on the homeland either. Changes had to be made, but we could not do it without first securing the support of the masses, who remained divided by that class conflict caused both by the aristocracy and by the socialists.
As long as that division continued, it would be impossible to close the wounds of the country and eliminate the diseases rotting it from within.
It was enough to look at our neighbor.
The Baltic Duchy was ruled by a true strong leader, an authoritarian ruler who, after witnessing the filth and chaos that democracy had brought to Germany, had wisely refused to hold elections within his own country.
He ruled absolutely, backed by a strong and united army and by a hardworking people gathered under a single flag, without an aristocracy capable of blocking reforms, without socialists dedicated to generating problems and instability.
The Baltic Duchy was literally the guide Germany had to follow.
And everything that supported the old order had to be eliminated: the nobles, the Church, the institutions that prevented change in the right direction.
It did not take us long to finally dissolve the Freikorps because of the pressure from the Prussian military governors, but nothing prevented us from creating our own paramilitary organizations, something that spread rapidly throughout Austria, since the nationalist fervor of the soldiers was through the roof because of the Anschluss, in addition to the collapse in popularity of the nobles and socialist organizations due to the chaos that had characterized the territory before the election.
That was why soldiers' councils quickly began to emerge in almost every Austrian city and, together with them, the Viking League was born.
We had reached the conclusion that, if we wanted to destroy the democratic regime, we still did not have the strength necessary to do it through arms. The German Heer remained too powerful and continued protecting its corrupt nobles and institutions we considered traitorous.
So we needed to secure power, a political base and enough popular support before attempting anything else.
Unfortunately, the Sudetenland had been divided and integrated into several constituent States represented in the Bundesrat. Prussia, Saxony and Bavaria had absorbed different parts of those territories and, practically immediately, enormous German political parties began establishing themselves there.
That would make it extremely difficult for us even to win mayoralties or local representatives, since all the forces opposed to the changes were trying to gain support among the population.
For that reason, a good part of us ended up migrating toward central Austria and leaving the Sudetenland behind.
Most members of the League settled in the former Habsburg strongholds, where we began gathering soldiers, veterans and workers.
Our intention was to secure support and recruit members for the party that was slowly beginning to take shape.
Finally, after long days, while stability returned thanks to the Prussian military presence and the support of the League's paramilitary forces, the elections began.
Constituent representatives would be elected and, at the same time, various figures of power within Austria and the former Sudeten territories.
That was when we presented our candidacies, trying to compete in every possible sector to confront the old Austrian parties.
With few funds, but with an enormous amount of fervor and using Karl's book as one of our main political guides, we achieved our first important results.
We had won multiple mayoralties and obtained especially good results in some important cities, such as Linz and Graz.
When the count ended, we had become the second political force in Austria, behind only the conservatives, who had received an enormous amount of funding and support from the German Zentrum.
We could have achieved much more.
But, for some reason, our vote had been divided in a disastrous way.
We had been forced to compete directly with a group of National Socialist workers who ended up fragmenting a good part of the vote that could have gone to us, allowing the conservatives to maintain several of their bastions.
And that was not even the worst part.
If we had united our votes or participated in an electoral coalition, we probably could have won a good part of Austria outright and occupied a dominant position within its government.
But, for some reason, that party had adopted many of our central ideas and had built much of its political campaign using exactly the same book by Karl.
And, for those reasons, since Austria had been fully integrated into the Bundesrat, the party that had obtained the most votes within Austrian territory had been the conservatives, so now they controlled the votes corresponding to Austria within the Bundesrat.
''Although we did not manage to obtain the great victory we expected, this sets us in motion. We will have heaps of obstacles, but we only need to maintain the strength and will of our guide to continue along the path. The reactionaries against change will always remain in the shadows, but we will have to keep fighting, burn away the lies of our enemies and gather the support necessary to destroy this corrupt system and bring down those who oppose a truly united German State. Karl never surrendered and neither will we'' I said while looking at the numerous representatives and mayors of the League gathered before me.
''We will destroy the social classes, we will destroy the opium that divides us, we will eliminate the corrupt and put an end to cultural differences until we create a completely unified society. This will be our own uphill battle. The German and Austrian elites are our Hindenburg, and we will prevail'' I said while clenching my fist and looking at those former soldiers who had now become politicians.
''We will prevail!'' they all shouted while striking the table.
With a signal of my hand, one of the men released a rope and a flag unfurled before us.
Over the colors of the German Empire appeared a Valknut, with each of its three triangles represented in black, red and white.
''Defeated, but not conquered'' I said while looking at the others.
The shouting filled the room once again.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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