c5: A New Day

“Excuse me, who is Sergeant Akado?” A Major, accompanied by two junior officers, appeared once again at the soon-to-be-disbanded and delisted Austrian Infantry Corps. They stood at the entrance to the wounded soldiers’ long corridor in the Pasewalk hospital and called out in a loud voice.

Akado was polishing his Iron Cross. He looked up and saw several officers standing at the door, calling his name.

Since arriving in this era, he had only participated in two “battles.” In the first, the enemy used poison gas, and he saved the lives of many comrades, earning him the Iron Cross. In the second, as a sergeant, he had taken a walk not far from the field hospital and ended up helping carry two stretchers back.

So, he wasn’t quite sure why these officers were looking for him. To arrest him as a deserter? Unlikely. He hadn’t run away. The reason he hadn’t returned to the front was that he was obeying his superior’s orders, not acting on his own initiative.

“I am Akado, sir!” Akado raised his hand, stood up, and walked over to the Major who had called his name.

“Sergeant Akado, congratulations on your promotion to Second Lieutenant. Here are your commission papers.” The Major was very polite. He first shook Akado’s hand before handing him the relevant documents. Then, with great solemnity, he took out a contract, spread it flat on a small, high-legged table that held a vase, and pointed to a blank space. “In light of your outstanding performance during the war, we are specially recruiting you into the new German Reichswehr as a Second Lieutenant. Your specific duties will be managed by Major Guderian. However, according to the Treaty of Versailles, you must confirm that you are joining the new German Reichswehr voluntarily.”

“Akado, you shouldn’t stay in the army! You should be with me! If we team up, we’ll be invincible!” Before Akado could speak, Hitler’s voice rang out from behind him. His words caught the officers’ attention, and they all turned to look at the wounded corporal whose eyes were still bloodshot.

“You know this corporal?” one of the officers asked casually, a hint of mockery in his tone.

“Yes, sir. He is a fine soldier of the Empire,” Akado replied, standing at attention. His voice was firm and loud, which startled the officer opposite him.

The Major glanced at Hitler, then at Akado who was standing at attention to speak up for his friend, and smiled. “Unfortunately, his rank requires him to be discharged. But you can stay. You may want to consider your decision carefully.”

“We can go into politics, Akado! Controlling the army will be as easy as flipping our hands then. As soon as we give the order, all the troops will swear allegiance to us!” Hitler pulled Akado aside and said with some excitement.

“We can be friends, comrades-in-arms, but we cannot be together. Our power is still too weak. For politics, you alone are enough. The two of us together won’t necessarily be stronger than you alone. Besides, I’ll only be serving in the army; I can still discuss matters with you,” Akado said with a smile.

Hitler’s eagle-like eyes stared at Akado. “I have no confidence I can win anyone’s support on the political stage. Are you confident you can become a general in an army full of aristocrats?”

“This isn’t a question of confidence.” Akado looked at Hitler, pursed his lips, and thought for a few seconds. After a moment of silence, he spoke again. “You must defeat all your opponents in politics and become the leader of Germany. And I must take the top seat in the military and become the commander-in-chief of all German armed forces. We have no retreat.”

Hitler stared blankly at Akado, swallowed hard, and finally managed to stammer out a single word: “Alright.”

“I’ve made my decision.” Akado walked up to the Major, took the pen, and signed his name on the document: Akado Rudolph. After writing his name, he stood at attention and saluted. “Major, sir, I am ready to depart immediately to report for duty.”

“Major Guderian’s office is in Hamburg. Here is your train ticket. You are to depart immediately. He will assign you your new position, Sergeant.” An officer next to the Major handed Akado a ticket, casually tossing it on top of the documents. A moment ago, Akado had slightly contradicted him for Hitler’s sake, so he felt no need to be pleasant now.

“Yes, sir.” Akado gave a standard Prussian salute. He sensed the slight hostility from the officer next to the Major, and also felt that he had just taken his first step as a soldier of the German Reichswehr.

Watching the Major and his entourage leave, Akado began to pack his belongings. He didn’t know why the officers of the new German army had chosen him—at least, they had selected him out of 100,000 soldiers. He mechanically placed his few personal items into his bag: his small notebook, a small mirror, a mess tin, and a partial military map of the Rheims area.

“Mr. Adolf Hitler.” Akado walked solemnly over to the slightly dejected Hitler and gently patted his shoulder. “I will find out where you are staying as soon as possible and try to contact you. Since I am in the army, I must follow orders, so I could be stationed anywhere in Germany. I will try to get them to transfer me to a department with more freedom as soon as I can. During this time, you will have to rely on yourself.”

He glanced at his bag, then reluctantly took out the small, black leather-bound notebook and handed it to Hitler. “This contains my analysis of the current political situation in Germany. It might be of some help to you. It’s of little use to me now, so I’d rather you have it.”

Hitler accepted the notebook with great solemnity. He stared at Akado with his unique, intense, eagle-like eyes and spoke in a voice that was already trembling slightly, “Mr. Akado, take care! When we meet again, I hope we will have the power to change Germany’s future.”

“That day will surely come. Before 1930, we will forge Germany into the most powerful nation in the world,” Akado said with a smile, then turned and walked out of the rear-area hospital where he had lived for nearly a month.

“Woo!” The train whistle blew, pulling Akado’s thoughts back to the present. The train car was still crowded, filled with the stench of sweat. Wounded soldiers and civilians in patched-up clothes were everywhere. Years of war had drained the nation of its lifeblood. Outside the train window, the scenery was one of utter devastation.

Returning to his senses, Akado noticed that the couple who had been sitting next to him seemed to have gotten off. Two new people were in their seats: a middle-aged man with a face full of wrinkles, and an air force officer in a leather jacket.

“Akado Rudolph,” Akado introduced himself politely.

“Dick. Air Force Lieutenant Dick Planck.” The air force officer nodded in a gentlemanly manner and introduced himself with a smile.

The middle-aged man next to him was about fifty, with fine wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. His age was common in Germany. He wore a rather fashionable plaid shirt, giving the impression of a vibrant middle-aged uncle.

This uncle ignored the two soldiers introducing themselves next to him. He held a newspaper and read it with intense focus, as if it contained some vital news.

Ignoring the middle-aged man’s rudeness, Akado continued to chat with the air force lieutenant named Dick. “I hear your entire air force is being disbanded. That’s a disaster. We have over ten thousand planes, what a pity! Those planes should have been used against the enemy.”

“My plane is over there.” The train had traveled far from the small station. On both sides of the railway were endless grasslands, with rolling hills in the distance. But between the grass and the hills, rows upon rows of German fighter planes were parked.

Depressingly, these biplanes, as slender as pencils, no longer had their wings. They lay like cold, lifeless corpses.

There seemed to be no end to the aircraft wreckage, which stretched all the way to the foot of the distant mountains. Even without a careful count, one could tell there were at least three hundred planes here.

“My God, it’s such a waste of these fighters. We shouldn’t have destroyed them on the ground.” Even though he was mentally prepared, Akado still felt dejected. Germany’s bewildering defeat seemed to inflict a profound humiliation upon the original soul residing in his body.

“If I were Germany’s commander, I would rather have died fighting in the sky,” Lieutenant Dick said, equally dismayed. He sighed before continuing, “We weren’t defeated in battle. We lost because of those high-ranking cowards who are afraid of death.”

The middle-aged man’s fingers tightened on the newspaper, his arm trembling involuntarily.

Akado stopped looking at the distant wreckage. He touched the Iron Cross on his chest but spoke in rebuttal to Dick, “If we could have won the war, I don’t think a single German would have chosen humiliation. But by living in humiliation now, we allow Germany to rise again faster!”

He spoke in a passionate, almost speech-like tone. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was incredibly devout. “Only those who have truly experienced war know how to face the next one. Believe me, the enemy has wounded our flesh, but they have also cut away the useless fat. As long as our bones are intact, we will not fall! One day, our enemies will discover that for the deepest cut they gave us, we will repay them tenfold!”

He ignored the middle-aged man, who had lowered his newspaper and was staring at him, and paid no mind to Dick, whose eyes now shone with admiration. He concluded with an oath: “We will welcome a new day. And when it comes, I will let you fly again.”

The middle-aged man who had been watching him put down his newspaper, took out a notebook, and wrote down a passage: “What peace treaty and enemy can’t take from us is this: a strong belief. When fate once again calls the German people to arms—and that day will come—it will find not cowards, but warriors, clutching their loyal weapons. As long as we have hands and wills of steel, it matters not what weapon we use.”