Chapter 25: A Show of Power
Berlin Suburbs.
First Transport Armor Division.
Naz sat lazily on a sofa, stirring his black tea while the silver spoon clinked softly against the porcelain cup.
"Captain, Captain Jörg has arrived. Are we really not going to receive him?"
Naz took an unhurried sip.
His military cap and greatcoat had been tossed carelessly onto the coat rack. Though it was only late November, the fireplace was already burning brightly, and paired with his wrinkled face and leisurely posture, he looked less like the supervising captain of an army unit and more like an old man enjoying a quiet holiday.
"No."
His tone was flat, dismissive.
"A brat barely in his twenties who stumbled into a captain's rank and somehow even got made deputy division commander. The whole world has gone mad."
Naz curled his lip in contempt.
It was not merely the new golden boy he disliked. As a conservative and a pacifist by instinct, he detested Seeckt's reforms and Hindenburg's interference in the Reichswehr even more.
And Jörg embodied both.
He was Hindenburg's man.
He held influence over military reform.
The mere thought of being observed and directed by a youth who had not even properly matured yet made Naz instinctively uncomfortable.
The last time he had felt this irritated was around Guderian, that obstinate fool who had publicly challenged his view that armored transport should remain exactly what it was meant to be, transport for flour, supplies, and useful things.
As long as Naz was here, that arrogant theorist and this lucky captain who had risen through the back door could both rot inside the First Transport Armored Division.
"Not only are we not receiving him," Naz said, setting down his teacup, "you will also inform Division Commander Heca that without my permission, no one is to meet him."
Then he added, almost as an afterthought,
"And have you found a buyer for the military supplies in the warehouse?"
"I have already informed Captain Yadolan from storage," his adjutant replied. "He will handle it."
Naz nodded with satisfaction.
Without war, logistics was one of the best places in the army to quietly accumulate wealth. Coming from a military family, he did not particularly care about small sums. But no one ever complained of having too much money.
Besides, he would retire in only a few years.
If someone discovered what he was doing, then at worst he would be dismissed.
What real damage could anyone do to him?
…
On the parade ground of the First Transport Armored Division, fine snow had already begun settling on the shoulders of an officer who looked far too young to be here.
"Captain Jörg, are we still waiting?"
Jörg glanced at his wristwatch and replied to his puzzled adjutant in a calm voice.
"No more waiting."
His eyes lifted toward the command building.
"It seems someone wants to make things difficult for us."
Then the corner of his mouth curved slightly.
"So we'll return the favor."
He lit a cigarette.
On the surface, he did not look particularly angry at being slighted. But to Adjutant Ethan, that faint smile looked cold no matter how he tried to interpret it.
Jörg's gaze drifted across the soldiers drilling on the parade ground.
Then, to Ethan's astonishment, he drew out the Luger P08 Hindenburg had given him, chambered a round, raised it skyward, and fired.
Bang!
The shot cracked across the parade ground like a whip.
Every head turned.
Confused, startled, and wary eyes all focused on him at once.
Without the slightest hesitation, Jörg strode onto the training ground and, under the eyes of the officers and men of the First Transport Armored Division, declared in a voice loud enough for all to hear:
"All training is suspended!"
He paused just long enough to let the authority of the interruption land.
"I am Jörg von Roman, your newly appointed deputy division commander. And from this moment on, I will announce the reform plan for the First Transport Armored Division."
…
Back in Naz's office, the previously relaxed atmosphere, built on jokes about how long it would take the lucky new captain to even find headquarters, was shattered by the gunshot.
Naz's hand jerked.
Hot black tea spilled across his lap, soaking his trousers in a sticky patch of heat and discomfort.
"What the hell was that?"
His expression twisted as he looked down, then around, cursing viciously.
When his adjutant instinctively reached forward to help, Naz kicked him away.
"Go find out what's happening! And close the damn door!"
The adjutant hurried out at once.
Only moments later, one of Naz's trusted company commanders came running in, panting so hard he could barely force the words out.
"Mr. Adjutant, something's happened on the parade ground!"
"What, have the French attacked?"
"No, it's the new captain. He's on the parade ground and…"
Before he could finish, the loudspeaker system crackled to life.
Then a young voice poured into the room.
"It is a pleasure to see all of you here. I know some of you must be wondering why a logistics armored corps, a formation mocked as little more than bread carriers, should suddenly need a deputy division commander sent directly from General Staff Headquarters."
There was the faintest pause.
"What is it? Have they decided even bread deserves a handsome escort?"
A few scattered laughs escaped the ranks outside.
Only a few.
Then silence returned.
Inside the office, Naz, now in the middle of changing his trousers, froze and stared at the loudspeaker in disbelief.
A second later, realization hit him.
He slammed the teacup down so hard it shattered against the floor.
"That damned little bastard."
His face darkened with fury.
"He turned around and paid me back in kind."
Without even fastening his belt properly, Naz snatched up his cap, shoved open the door, and stormed out while cursing.
"Call Heca out of the command post! Now!"
His expression was venomous.
"If I'm a few minutes later, that new idiot will have grabbed every bit of military authority in this division!"
Meanwhile, Jörg's speech continued.
Because he carried credentials issued directly by Headquarters, and because the Luger at his side bore Hindenburg's personal engraving, the two guard companies still under Naz's control did not dare lay a hand on him.
So all they could do was stand there and watch as this newly arrived deputy commander delivered, without any prior approval, a full speech before the entire division.
"It would be a fine thing," Jörg said, "if Germany still stood upright in the world today. In that case, I would not mind being a logistics officer hauling bread from one place to another."
His voice strengthened.
"But defeat in war is a whip."
He swept his gaze over the formation.
"And when a whip strikes a mule, it does so for only one reason, to drive it forward."
The soldiers stood motionless, listening.
"That defeat is still driving us now."
His tone sharpened.
"It tells us one truth above all others, justice belongs only to the side whose fist is larger."
He let the sentence hang in the cold air.
"And I am here to help turn the First Logistics Armored Division into that fist."
The words struck hard.
He could already feel the resistance, the doubt, the instinctive question forming in countless minds, so he answered it before it could fully take shape.
"I know what many of you are thinking. We are logistics. We haul supplies. We move bread, fuel, ammunition, boots, wheels, grease, and spare parts. How can that possibly become a fist?"
He raised a hand.
"Because all of you have only been looking at the word logistics."
Then he drove the point home.
"And forgetting the word armored."
His delivery was not hurried.
If anything, it was measured, almost calm.
But the steadiness only made it more effective. The conviction in his voice resonated through the officers and soldiers standing below, striking somewhere deeper than reason, down in the instinctive part of a man that wanted his work to matter.
Among those listening was a middle aged officer in captain's rank standing near the front.
His gaze remained fixed on the podium, full of restrained curiosity and something even stronger, longing.
Jörg noticed him.
Their eyes met.
Jörg's lips pressed together slightly, and he gave him the faintest nod of approval.
Then came the interruption.
"Jörg! Jörg, what exactly do you think you're doing?!"
Heavy footsteps approached from behind.
Jörg turned.
Naz was striding toward him, trousers still slightly loose around his waist, his anger plain enough to make the entire scene almost comical.
Jörg smiled.
It was not a warm smile.
"You must be Captain Naz."
He glanced at the man's disordered clothing and continued with open mockery.
"I assumed you and Division Commander Heca had some urgent official matter to attend to. That is why, rather than disturbing you, I came directly here to announce this good news to the men first."
With a single sentence, he smoothly turned what could have been framed as insubordination into an attack on Naz's own conduct.
Naz had failed to receive him.
Naz had failed to acknowledge him.
If Jörg chose to take that insult back to Headquarters, Naz would gain nothing from the exchange.
Heca, who had arrived a step behind and clearly intended to object, was stopped by Naz with a slight movement of the arm.
Surrounded by the entire division, Naz understood perfectly well that he was no longer in a room where anger could be safely spent.
So he forced it down.
His smile was stiff, but it was still a smile.
"On behalf of the First Logistics Armored Division, I offer you my apology, Captain Jörg. It seems there was some delay in our information, and we did not receive the exact time of your arrival."
His voice remained smooth.
"We are sincerely sorry."
Jörg calmly pulled on his leather gloves.
Then he gave a small shrug, as if the insult had been too insignificant to truly matter.
Finally, he extended his hand.
"I accept your apology."
[TL: Again some history here is not historically correct this is a parallel world of 1920's]
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