Chapter 8: Paul Joseph
In an apartment near Munich's industrial district, the shrill ringing of a bell pierced through the window glass and dragged a young man out of the boundless realm of imagination back into grim reality.
He rose, opened the window, and pulled the curtains aside.
Warm sunlight spilled across his face.
Under the mild glow of May, his brown eyes, prominent nose, and melancholy expression were laid bare. Judging only by his appearance, anyone would have taken him for a struggling author with too many thoughts and too few readers, not the Paul Joseph who, in another time, would become the voice of the German Workers' Party and one of history's most terrifying masters of propaganda.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The sharp knock at the door made the pen he had just picked up slip from his fingers again.
"Just a moment."
After his quiet reply, the knocking immediately ceased.
Because of the disability in his left leg, Joseph could only push himself up slowly by leaning on the edge of the desk. He limped toward the door and unlocked it with some effort.
The moment it opened, a pair of deep blue eyes caught his attention.
He looked the visitor up and down. The man wore a tailored suit, appeared to be around his age, perhaps even younger, and carried himself with a composure that felt strangely oppressive.
Joseph asked in confusion, "May I ask who you are?"
"Just call me Jörg," the young man replied. "Are you Mr. Paul Joseph?"
Joseph lowered his eyes to the business card being offered to him.
The prominent von stood out at once.
So did the title beneath it.
Berlin Police Security Minister
A flicker of surprise finally broke through Joseph's calm expression.
A police minister had come to see him?
Had he written something that violated some regulation? But his novel had not even been read by anyone yet.
Jörg glanced past him and said with a faint smile, "Won't you invite me in?"
"Of course. Please, come in, please."
Still stunned, Joseph hurriedly stepped aside and ushered him into the apartment. Dragging his lame left leg toward the kitchen, he suddenly realized that the most presentable thing he could offer a guest was a few moldy coffee beans.
The apartment itself was not large, but it was immaculately kept. It was easy to see that the discipline of a Catholic clerk's household had left its mark on him. A bank uniform hung neatly behind the door, and every item in the room had been arranged with quiet precision.
On the main wall of the sitting room hung a framed quotation from Feuerbach:
The mark of true philosophy is the ability to expound.
Jörg sat on the sofa, accepted a glass of cold water without complaint, and spoke directly.
"Mr. Joseph, I heard that you currently work at a bank. That sort of work does not seem suited to a genius with a doctorate in philosophy."
Joseph studied him carefully.
The words sounded sincere, not mocking.
At last, he let out a long breath. A man of his position was used to being the one questioned, not the one praised.
"Genius?" he said with a faint, bitter smile. "You flatter me, Mr. Jörg. A degree in philosophy is little more than scrap paper now. No matter how profound one's thoughts may be, they cannot change the reality of our defeat. And eloquence alone cannot erase the humiliation of Germany's glory being trampled into the mud beneath French boots."
He paused, then looked more closely at Jörg.
"If anyone deserves the word genius, it would be you. This is the first time I've seen someone so young become Security Minister."
The mention of Versailles awakened something dark inside him.
The memory of that humiliation, and of the word slave muttered by the French, made Joseph's eyes sharpen. He looked like a venomous wolf with a broken spine, wounded, crippled, but still refusing to bow.
"To be honest with you, Mr. Jörg," he said, his voice turning colder, "if not for this rotten leg, I would have gladly given my life to defend that honor, just like every German soldier who offered himself to his ideals and his country."
His hand slowly clenched.
"Because this is my country. This is the land of the Germanic people."
Jörg said nothing.
He simply listened, patient and still, allowing Joseph to pour out the resentment and unwillingness he had buried for so long.
Then, when the room finally fell quiet, Jörg asked in an even tone,
"And if I gave you another chance to serve Germany, would you take it?"
Joseph froze.
For a moment, he did not understand.
Then he frowned and asked, "Are you inviting me to join the police?"
Roman shook his head.
"No."
He leaned forward slightly.
"I am inviting you to help build Germany's future."
Unlike Joseph, whose radical anger could barely conceal the despair underneath, Jörg's face was filled with a soaring confidence, a confidence that did not belong to a defeated man, but to a victor.
There was something dangerously persuasive about it.
Something that made people want to follow.
Joseph hesitated.
"But… what could I possibly do for you? I'm just an ordinary man. Unremarkable. And crippled."
Jörg immediately shook his head again.
"No, Mr. Joseph. You are not ordinary. Everyone has value. Everyone has talent. Most people simply go through life without ever discovering what theirs is."
He picked up the draft of Joseph's still-wet novel from the desk and flipped through a few pages.
Then he looked up and said with absolute certainty,
"I believe you would make an excellent propagandist. An orator. A voice worthy of a political party."
Joseph instinctively wanted to refuse.
He had only known this man for a few hours, less than that, really. And yet the words build Germany's future unfurled in his mind like a vast and irresistible painting.
He opened his mouth.
"Sorry, but…"
He stopped himself.
Then corrected it.
"Let me think about it."
After a brief silence, Joseph asked with newfound seriousness, "If I may be frank, Mr. Jörg, on behalf of which party are you inviting me? The Liberal Party? The Democratic Party? The Socialist Party? Or the Workers' Party that has been so active in Munich lately?"
Jörg answered word by word.
"The Progress Party."
Joseph blinked.
"The Progress Party? When was it founded?"
Jörg lit a cigarette. Gray smoke drifted upward in the sunlight spilling through the window, thin as a veil.
Then he said calmly,
"Just now."
His deep blue eyes held steady on Joseph's face.
"And you, Mr. Joseph, are my first party member."
Joseph almost laughed.
The sheer boldness of the statement was absurd, but the firmness in Jörg's tone made it difficult to dismiss as a joke.
Jörg noticed the disbelief in his eyes and merely smiled.
He had expected this reaction.
After all, if a stranger walked into your home, spoke grandly about changing Germany, and then invited you to join a political party he had apparently founded only seconds ago, any sane person would think he was either a fraud or a lunatic.
If not for Jörg's identity as Security Minister, Joseph might already have shown him the door.
"I know you think I'm joking, Mr. Joseph," Jörg said. "But I believe this paper will help prove that I'm not."
He placed a document flat on the coffee table.
Joseph picked it up and read the heading aloud.
"Munich Industrial Daily. Share Transfer Agreement."
He looked up sharply.
"Mr. Jörg… you bought a newspaper?"
Jörg spread his hands slightly.
"Do you still think I'm joking?"
Joseph stared at him for a long moment, then said honestly, "No. Now I think you must be mad. How could people like us…"
"History," Jörg cut in quietly, "has always been written by people who once seemed small."
Then he laughed softly.
"To be fair, I also think I'm a little mad."
He leaned forward, and his voice took on the pull of a flame in darkness.
"So tell me, Mr. Joseph. Are you willing to leave this cramped apartment, turn your back on fictional worlds, and join me in changing a real one? Are you willing to go mad with me?"
His words grew stronger, heavier, carrying ambition like steel beneath velvet.
"We will drag Germany out of the abyss. We will take revenge on those who mock us, those who betray us, those who speculate on our ruin. And we will build a thousand year empire, just as Wilhelm I once envisioned!"
At the same time, Jörg placed a check on the table.
One million Papiermarks.
Joseph stared at it, then stared at the man across from him.
The check stirred his ambition.
Jörg's words stirred something deeper, a fierce and nameless heat that overwhelmed all the hesitation and caution he had clung to a moment ago.
His concerns, his self doubt, even his suspicion were all drowned beneath that rising tide.
He nodded rapidly, almost frantically, like a starving man who had suddenly been told he was needed.
Jörg smiled.
At that exact moment, the mechanical voice of the system rang out in his mind.
[Congratulations, Host, for making a minor change to Paul Joseph's fate. Reward: Oratory Skill.]
[Oratory: An innate gift, and a means of captivating hearts.]