Chapter 88: A Feast for One
The moment Jörg finished speaking, the room fell silent.
The men around the table exchanged glances, yet each pair of eyes held a different calculation.
Hugo Junkers lowered his head slightly. From the beginning, he had never liked the military sphere. To him, aircraft existed to draw the earth closer together, to shorten the distance between cities, peoples, and continents, not to circle above crowds and cast death from the sky. Jörg's proposal did not merely fail to interest him. It unsettled him.
Alfred, however, was the exact opposite.
Ever since he had watched his father branded a war criminal and seen their factories carved apart under British and French supervision, the desire for revenge had rooted itself deep in his bones. Profit mattered less to him than restoration. If rearming Germany required his life, then so be it. If it gave him one more chance to push Krupp forward, then he would pay any price.
Simon Zeiss and Ken Dorf stroked their beards in silence.
They did not carry Junkers' moral discomfort, nor Alfred's feverish hunger for vengeance. Their concerns were much more immediate. Their firms were already hovering at the edge of collapse. If helping the government develop new weapons meant access to capital and orders, then loyalty was a very cheap thing to offer.
Every man's thoughts shone plainly in his eyes.
Jörg saw all of it.
He swirled the wine in his glass once and chose not to begin with Alfred, though the young man's zeal was already practically written across his face. Instead, he turned toward the one whose hesitation mattered most.
"Mr. Junkers," he said evenly, "what is your view?"
Junkers wanted, sincerely and immediately, to refuse.
But under Jörg's steady gaze, that hard answer softened into a weary sigh.
"Mr. Jörg," he said, "I am not particularly familiar with the field of military aircraft."
"That is quite all right."
Jörg's tone remained calm.
"I have read your work on aircraft frames. Your ideas regarding all metal construction, cantilever wings, and the monoplane layout are the work of a genuine genius."
Junkers looked up at him sharply.
Jörg continued before he could speak.
"I also know that your real passion has always been civilian aviation. Passenger aircraft. Transport aircraft. Machines meant to shorten the distance between human beings. I know as well that you recently tried to approach American investors, and that their answer was far from generous."
The words struck precisely where Junkers was weakest.
Jörg had come prepared.
He had already understood that a man like Junkers could not be swayed by profit alone. Offer him money, and he would become cautious. Speak to him only of war, and he would recoil. A man devoted to invention needed something else. He needed to believe that the state asking for his service could also fulfill the dream he carried in his own heart.
So Jörg leaned slightly forward.
"I can give you funding on a scale those Americans never will. The Reichswehr can give you pilots, engineers, testing facilities, routes, and long term continuity. The training base in Soviet Russia will not only serve military purposes. It can also supply trained fliers for your civilian prototypes."
He let the silence stretch for a heartbeat.
"All I ask is that you allow your talent to tilt, just slightly, toward the nation."
Jörg's voice deepened.
"Britain and France broke Germany's limbs. They reduced our national defense from one of the strongest in Europe to the point where even Poland now dares show its teeth at us over the border."
His gaze swept the table.
"A nation without defense is a nation humiliated."
"The Reichswehr requires aircraft worthy of Germany's skies. Tell me, Mr. Junkers, would you really want to see the day when British bombers circle above Hamburg, turning this city into cinders, while we possess nothing with which to answer them?"
The room seemed to tighten around those words.
For Alfred, it was as if some buried wound had been torn open. Images from childhood surged back, British and French soldiers striding through the factory, machinery dismantled piece by piece, his father's face dark with rage and helplessness. The humiliation of defeat, the bitterness of occupation, the memory of Germany kneeling before foreign hands, all of it flared into life at once.
He rose first.
"Mr. Jörg," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "the Krupp family will serve you and Germany to the end."
Jörg gave him a brief nod of acknowledgment, then turned back to Junkers.
He did not need to press harder. The line had already been cast.
Junkers remained silent for several seconds. At last, he gave a reluctant nod.
"You are right."
Jörg leaned back in his chair.
"Does anyone else object?"
No one spoke.
"Good," he said softly. "You will not regret the decision you have made today."
At a snap of his fingers, Cardolan distributed the prepared contracts.
The investment, naturally, was not charity. Jörg had different plans for each firm, but none of them would be funded without a price, and that price was half their shares.
The moment Simon Zeiss saw the terms, his brows drew together.
"Mr. Jörg," he said carefully, "isn't this equity demand rather... high? And why is the contract with Cardolan Investment Company rather than directly with the Reichswehr?"
Jörg shook his head.
"High?"
He smiled faintly.
"Think carefully, Mr. Zeiss. Yes, you assume risk. But in exchange you gain capital, expansion, research capacity, and access to military contracts that may define the next decade of your company's life."
He tapped the contract once.
"As for why the agreement is with Cardolan Investment Company rather than the Reichswehr, that should be obvious. If this arrangement is discovered, a transaction between companies can still be presented as commercial activity. But if it is discovered that the Reichswehr is directly injecting funds into these projects, then both you and I would have a very serious problem."
Zeiss understood at once.
He said no more.
One by one, the contracts were signed.
When Cardolan had gathered them all, Jörg lifted his glass once more and said, "I am pleased that each of you has chosen correctly. Cardolan will inform you of the next steps. Time is limited. The first group of researchers will be organized in roughly one month. Return home and prepare."
The men began taking their leave.
"Goodbye, Mr. Jörg."
One after another, they departed.
Only Alfred remained behind, still staring at Jörg with an intensity that was almost fervent. In the young man's eyes, the figure at the head of the table had already become something close to a savior.
Jörg regarded him with quiet amusement.
He had originally intended to invite Alfred's father, not the son. But since the younger Krupp was already the designated heir, the distinction was of little practical importance. The signature on the paper held the same weight.
"Alfred," Jörg said, "is there something else?"
"No, Mr. Jörg."
Alfred straightened himself.
"I only wished to express my respect once again. This is my card. I hope that one day you will honor my family by visiting our home."
He set the card down on the table, bowed, and withdrew.
At last, the private room was left to only Jörg and Cardolan.
Without outsiders present, the atmosphere immediately shed its public polish.
"Cardolan," Jörg said, "how far along is the preparation of the engineers we intend to send to Soviet Russia?"
"Everything is ready," Cardolan replied at once. "Several heavy industrial firms, including Siemens, remain extremely grateful for the capital you secured for them. Engineers in machine tools, metals, structural frames, and related fields can be dispatched at any time."
Jörg tore off a strip of crisp pork hock skin and chewed slowly.
Assisting Soviet Russia was not merely acceptable. It was necessary.
In fact, he wanted Britain and America to see Germany's ambiguous closeness to the Soviets. Only then would London and Washington continue making concessions, fearing that this broken winged black eagle might otherwise one day fly fully into Moscow's camp. So long as Germany remained both dangerous and uncertain, it would remain impossible for them to ignore.
As for the problem of raising a tiger only to be devoured by it later, Jörg did not worry overmuch.
The military academies, research centers, and industrial assistance would certainly strengthen Soviet Russia. But Soviet Russia, by its own nature, would also repeatedly wound itself. And that was precisely why he had already proposed the Dark Sword plan to Hindenburg. Germany needed an intelligence instrument capable of turning Soviet internal contradictions into open fractures, sooner and more violently than they otherwise would.
The Soviet state was too vast.
And besides, not every nation trapped inside its borders loved it equally. The Ukrainians, for example, had very different memories from those sitting in Moscow.
Jörg nodded once and said, "Go to Denmark for me. Find a physicist named Heisenberg. If I remember correctly, he should currently be with Niels Bohr in Copenhagen."
Cardolan immediately committed the instruction to memory, then rose.
"I will leave at once, Master. There is another banquet in Hamburg tonight that requires my appearance."
Jörg inclined his head in approval.
When Cardolan left, the room grew still again.
Jörg refilled his wineglass and looked over the untouched abundance spread across the table.
A feast for one.
.....
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