Chapter 55: A Secret Loss

In the President’s office, located at Wilhelmstrasse 73, Akado was meeting with President Hindenburg, explaining the recent parade activities of the Greater Germany Party.

“Are you making a show of force against me?” Hindenburg asked, staring at Akado, his words tinged with a bit of anger. “Or are you saying you want to replace me and take this seat?”

Akado waved his hand. “No one can replace you, President Hindenburg. We are demonstrating our strength to our opponents, a strength sufficient to deter them! This is to ensure we can help you secure a certain victory in the upcoming election.”

“What exactly are you trying to do? General Akado Rudolph, are you not yet satisfied with the power I have given you?” Hindenburg continued to ask with a frown.

He glanced at the silent Akado, sighed, and seemed to be talking to himself. “You should know, you are only just 27 years old now. At your age, my rank was not even half as high as yours is now, and the power was completely incomparable.”

As he spoke, he stroked an exquisite ornament on his desk. After finishing, he looked up at Akado again. “Do you intend to command the entire army and then set up a military government to help you carry out a dictatorial rule?”

Akado lowered his head, thought for a moment, and then spoke, “I do not wish for a dictatorship. I wish to lead this long-suffering nation of Germany to victory! Mr. President! The reason I seek power is because I need greater authority to execute my plan to revitalize the German nation! It is absolutely not for any kind of dictatorship.”

“Power without balance will push you to another extreme, my boy! You know that power obtained through improper means will eventually lead to ruin!” Hindenburg lamented with deep meaning.

“If someone holds us back, then the revitalization of the Reichswehr will face great obstruction. This is not a time when we are allowed to back down, Mr. President,” Akado said, standing at attention. “We must unite and strike down all enemies who stand in our way.”

“I will not surrender my power! General Akado, I will defend my power with my life! Only I, the president of this country, Hindenburg, am the supreme commander of the German Reichswehr!” Hindenburg said, closing his eyes and speaking word by word.

This was no idle boast from Hindenburg. Among the 330,000 regular troops of Germany, although Akado controlled nearly 100,000 men of the main force units, the majority of the Reichswehr were still die-hard loyalists of President Hindenburg. They adhered to the tradition of the old German Army of not participating in politics, resisting the infiltration of the Nazi Party and not accepting the leadership of the Greater Germany Party, remaining outside of politics.

“And that is why you stand firmly behind me and support me, isn’t it? Our goals are aligned. We both hope that Germany can become strong! We both hope that the Reichswehr can be invincible in the world!” Akado said solemnly. “Seeckt did not stop me, and you have not stopped me. It is not for any other reason than the fact that we both have a heart that loves Germany.”

Hindenburg was silent. He was silent for a long, long time. Finally, he looked up at Akado and said helplessly, “The chairman of the Social Democratic Party has sought me out. He told me that the Greater Germany Party is the root cause of social disorder and implored me not to support holding an early parliamentary election. I agreed to his request.”

“No problem. I will immediately notify Krupp and have him and Stresemann stop this parade activity,” Akado said with his head lowered. “I have guaranteed you that the Greater Germany Party will unconditionally support your decisions.”

“Very good! You know when to advance and when to retreat better than I imagined. I am very pleased,” Hindenburg said, standing up. He walked slowly in front of Akado, his steps somewhat labored. Age made his every breath seem precious. “General Akado, I also promise you that the government will secretly allocate 5.5 million US dollars for the procurement of Reichswehr equipment, and prepare another 1 million US dollars as bonuses to be distributed to all officers of the army. Do you have any other requests?”

Akado stood at attention, raised his right hand high in a salute, lifted his chin, and replied, “None, Mr. President! Long live Greater Germany!”

Very satisfied with Akado’s attitude, Hindenburg nodded and waved his hand to dismiss Akado. Akado once again stood at attention and saluted before exiting the President’s office.

Outside Hindenburg’s office door, two cadres of the Greater Germany Party were waiting there. One was the head of the Organization Department, Toth, and the other was the head of the Propaganda Department, Matthof. Seeing Akado come out, they immediately stood up and came over to greet him.

“I want you to investigate this matter immediately and clearly! This time, someone was fishing in troubled waters and made things so uncontrollable that we nearly became the enemies of President Hindenburg! If I didn’t know him so well, we would have been finished this time!” Akado ordered fiercely the moment the two men approached. “Within three days! I want a detailed report!”

“Yes, sir!” The two men knew Akado was in a bad mood and just nodded in agreement without saying another word.

“Notify Krupp and Stresemann to come to my office this afternoon,” Akado continued to issue orders as he walked out.

“Yes, sir!” Toth from the Organization Department replied.

Akado turned his head to Captain Cindra, who was following behind him, and said, “Call the president’s office of the MAN company. Schedule a time for you to go over personally. Tell them the funds are in place, and we are ordering an additional 50 P4-type vehicles.” For the sake of secrecy, all armored vehicles within the Reichswehr were referred to as “vehicles” (Automobile), but the leading letter had a specific distinction: B referred to vehicles produced by the BMW company (Bayerische Motoren Werke); D referred to vehicles produced by the Daimler company; K referred to vehicles produced by the Krupp company; and the numbers 1, 2, 3 were used to distinguish the size of the motor vehicle.

For example, B1 referred to a BMW motorcycle, B2 to a small BMW car, D3 to a large Mercedes-Benz car, and a P4-type vehicle referred to the secretly produced P-2 tank.

“Understood!” Captain Cindra nodded. “I will depart immediately as soon as I return to the High Command.”

Akado was still confident in Captain Cindra’s ability to handle matters. Although the loyalty of her and Anna still needed to be observed and proven, the work ability of the two was very satisfactory to Akado.

He had summoned Krupp and Stresemann not for any other reason than to immediately order the cessation of the Greater Germany Party’s parades in Berlin and other parts of Germany, and to conduct a comprehensive review of this rashly launched parade.

When the two men arrived at the office, Akado said with a grim face, “Gentlemen, we were a bit too aggressive this time. We didn’t consider the reactions of the various factions, which led to this action of demonstrating our strength being used by people with ulterior motives!”

Stresemann was a clever man and quickly thought of the key to the problem. “They used our actions to ‘kill us with praise’? We originally had no demand for an early parliamentary election! It was these bastards who framed us!”

“This was just a super promotional event to expand our party’s influence. It had no political purpose! Let alone making a foolish demand like asking for an early parliamentary election. We are not yet ready to win an election, how could we possibly make such a demand?” Krupp also said with a frown.

Suddenly, his eyes lit up. Akado seemed to have thought of the key to the problem. “Have we forgotten someone?”

Stresemann stared at Akado with confusion. “Who? Who is this important person we’ve forgotten?”

Akado walked to his desk, pulled out a file folder from a stack of documents, opened it, and took out two files, along with a photograph attached to one of them. “This person is the head of the Nazi Party in Berlin. His name is Goebbels. He is a very formidable fellow! He is very familiar with propaganda work. This incident is most likely his handiwork.”

“The Nazi Party? Why would they do this?” Krupp asked, then suddenly laughed. “Heh heh! How interesting! It’s because their most capable man, Mr. Adolf Hitler, was personally arrested and put in prison by you, Chairman, right?”

“It’s not just that,” Akado said, tossing the file on the coffee table with a frown. “They are doing what we did a year ago: stirring up the water to take the opportunity to strengthen themselves.”

“Playing the same tricks we’ve played? This Goebbels isn’t that great after all,” Stresemann said, picking up the file from the coffee table, flipping through it casually, and then tossing it back. “Is he really as formidable as you say, Chairman?”

“Don’t underestimate him. At the very least, he is an opponent who is enough to make us vigilant,” Akado said.

“I have recently been preparing a diplomatic offensive against Britain. I plan to persuade the British government to agree to revise the Treaty of Versailles again, to expand our army to 200,000 men. This is the top priority of my recent work,” Stresemann said with great indifference. “The task of dealing with this ‘terrible opponent’ can be left to Vice-Chairman Krupp.”

“Me? I still have four meetings to attend, concerning the distribution of imported industrial raw materials like steel and rubber for several large companies. Where would I find the time to deal with such an unknown minor figure? Let’s hand this fellow over to our propaganda minister, Mr. Matthof,” Krupp also had no interest in this Goebbels and instantly pushed the matter away completely.

Akado was helpless. After all, not everyone had a clear foresight of history as he did. So he couldn’t expect the now-famous arms magnate Krupp and the renowned German Foreign Minister Stresemann to pay any serious attention to a mere propagandist of a small party, Goebbels.

“In that case, I will recommend a person to be Mr. Matthof’s deputy to deal with Goebbels,” Akado said helplessly. He had no choice but to try to guide the situation in a better direction as much as possible.

“Who?” Krupp asked curiously, noticing that Akado had used the female pronoun.

“The reporter from the Greater Germany Party’s newspaper, Miss Fanny! I am very satisfied with the promotional campaign she planned this time. Help me thank her, and let her continue to be in charge of the Greater Germany Party’s propaganda work,” Akado said after some thought.