Fire and Steel, Volume 1 Read online

  In 1740, Frederick the Second became king of Prussia. A brilliant general and an astute statesman, he would soon come to be called Frederick the Great. Like the kings before him, he had absolute ruling power over Prussia. But unlike those before him, Frederick was wise enough to see that if he was to achieve his goal of bringing Prussia into the modern world and becoming a true political power, he couldn’t rule in an autocratic or dictatorial manner. His guiding principle became, “What is best for Prussia?” and he made it clear to his subjects that he expected them to ask themselves that same question.

  Frederick’s statesmanship became evident when he instituted a series of domestic reforms that strengthened the country. He established universal religious freedom and granted freedom of the press. The judicial system was reformed, and Prussia’s judges came to be known as the most honest in Europe. He required general education throughout the country. He set up agricultural reforms, financed the rebuilding of towns, and built thousands of miles of road throughout the kingdom.

  By the time he died in 1786, not only had Frederick the Great turned Prussia into one of the strongest states in Europe, but he also had created a loyalty and devotion to the Fatherland among the citizenry that would carry into the next century and shape German history forever.

  Otto von Bismarck

  After Frederick’s death, weaker leaders tried to carry on his legacy but fell far short. In 1805, Napoleon put an end to the Holy Roman Empire. Ten years later an attempt to unify Germany led to the creation of a confederation of thirty-nine separate states. It was too weak and fractured to have much influence.

  Once again, a natural leader stepped forward. Otto Eduard Leopold, prince of Bismarck and a son of one of Prussia’s leading families, came to power. More commonly known as Otto von Bismarck, he got himself appointed to the Reichstag, the confederation’s parliament. Already seen by others as a man of great ability and insight, he electrified the group on September 30, 1862, with a simple sentence that quickly became a rallying cry. After recounting their continuing failure to create a German state of any consequence, Bismarck stunned the chamber with these words: “Prussia must concentrate and maintain its power, for the great questions of our time will not be resolved by speeches or majority decisions. That will come only by blood and iron!”

  It was straight from the spirit of the Germani chieftains of old. Only war put things right.

  With armies largely financed by his own family and those of princes in league with him, Bismarck quickly defeated Denmark and Austria. That sent France into a panic, and war clouds began to gather—which was exactly what Bismarck wanted. Of all their enemies, France had been the most hated for centuries. Prussia’s defeat by Napoleon was the final humiliation, and there was a deep and lasting animosity between the two nations.

  With some clever diplomacy and through misrepresenting the truth, Bismarck deliberately provoked France into declaring war against Prussia in 1870. His brilliant leadership of the armies brought victory in under two years, crowning Prussia the third most powerful nation in Europe. It was a tremendous victory, and the German people were united in a way they hadn’t been for centuries. Bells rang across the land, and celebrations broke out in the towns and villages.

  A short time later, the German states were formally unified at last into a real German state. The head of state—which was largely a ceremonial office—would be called the Kaiser, or Caesar, invoking the grandeur of the Roman Empire. But the head of government, the real power behind the throne, would be the chancellor. To no one’s surprise, and by virtually unanimous acclamation, Otto von Bismarck became the first chancellor of what was called the new German Empire. And thus, the Second German Reich was born.

  After centuries of darkness, defeat, humiliation, and oppression, at last there was an empire equal in power and glory to that of Imperial Rome.

  Chapter Note

  The information on German history comes from many Internet sources and also draws heavily from William Shirer’s classic study of Nazi Germany (see Third Reich, 90–97).

  February 20, 1896—Graswang Village, Bavaria, Germany

  It was snowing steadily on the day Hans Otto Eckhardt was born.

  When it all started at 3:30 that morning, only a few flakes were floating down from the starless sky. That was when Inga Eckhardt shook her husband awake from a deep sleep. “Hans, go!” she whispered through clenched teeth. “Go to the village and fetch Frau Hemmert.”

  He rose up on one elbow. “What about the milking? Can you wait?”

  “Not while you milk ten cows, dummkopf!”

  “But . . .” Cows didn’t wait either. “I can be done in half an hour.”

  “Go!” she cried. Grumbling to himself, her husband got up and began to dress.

  Approximately twenty hours later, with six inches of snow outside, Inga gave one last piercing scream as she felt the contraction peaking again. “Push!” Frau Hemmert cried. “Push! It’s coming!”

  There was no need to yell at her. Nothing could have stopped her now. Biting her lip, gripping the bed frame so hard she felt she would leave fingerprints in the wood, Inga bore down one last time. And suddenly there was a euphoric feeling of release, of deliverance. She fell back, gasping as a lusty wail split the air. It was 11:47 p.m. on the 20th day of February.

  “It’s a boy!” the midwife exclaimed. She held up the baby for his mother to see, then turned and shouted over her shoulder. “Herr Eckhardt. It’s a boy! You have a son.”

  There was a cry of exultation from the main room. “Give us five minutes,” Frau Hemmert called, “then you can come in.”

  “My, my,” she said to Inga as she turned back and went to work. “No wonder it took so long. Over nine pounds I would guess. Maybe ten. He is as strong as a horse! Oh, you poor woman.” The baby was howling, arms and hands and legs and feet thrashing wildly. “And such mighty lungs,” she laughed. “He is quite outraged at what just happened to him.”

  Inga barely heard her. Never had she felt so utterly exhausted, so utterly spent. She murmured something, not sure whether it was an appropriate response, but not caring, and then closed her eyes and slipped into a deep sleep.

  • • •

  Inga Jolanda Bauer had been born the oldest child of a Schweinehirt—a swine keeper. The family lived on a small farm in Unterammergau—or Lower Ammergau—in Southern Bavaria, just a few miles north of the Austrian border. Unlike most of their neighbors in the valley, the Bauers lived in wretched and perpetual poverty. Josef Bauer was one of those men whom life seemed to take particular delight in holding back. As one of his neighbors noted, if you gave Josef a bar of gold, he would manage to turn it into a brick of tin before the week was over. The fact that he was a heavy drinker, like so many men who failed miserably at life, didn’t help.

  Unterammergau was about two miles downstream from Ober—or upper—Ammergau, and it benefitted considerably from Oberammergau’s “rich cousin” status. Set at the foot of the Bavarian Alps, the two villages and the stunning scenery of the valley around them drew a lot of summer tourists, particularly from Munich, just thirty miles to the north. But that only partially accounted for the valley’s booming tourist industry.

  In 1633, the Black Death—bubonic plague—was ravaging Europe. The villages watched in dread as the disease marched relentlessly southward. In desperation, and at the urging of their parish priest, the villagers made a sacred vow. If the Lord would spare them from the disease, they would put on a dramatization of Christ’s Passion—the common name for the final week of the Savior’s life—and would do so every year thereafter.

  In a matter of weeks, death rates dropped dramatically and new cases almost disappeared. In July, only one adult was lost. Filled with a profound gratitude, the villagers staged the first play the following summer in a hastily constructed outdoor theater just outside the village.

  Now, 232 years later, they were still doing it every ten years and bringing in tens of thousands of paying visitors.
The fame of their little community—its fabled beauty, its charming houses, and a collection of wood-carvers the likes of which few other villages could boast—spread far and wide. The whole area had been blessed with a steady, reliable economy thanks to that simple vow of gratitude.

  Unfortunately, not much of that prosperity touched the Bauers. By the time Inga was six and ready to attend primary school, there were three other little Bauers to feed. So even though the schools were state-supported, Inga attended just long enough to learn to read and write and do some basic arithmetic. By the time she was twelve, there were seven children to feed. Her father’s drinking problem had only deepened, and the Bauers were desperate.

  One day when she was thirteen, Inga’s father returned from Oberammergau, called his wife and Inga into the kitchen, and announced that starting the following day, Inga would become an indentured servant to one of the most prosperous men in the village—Herr Hermann Kleindienst. The Kleindiensts owned not only Oberammergau’s largest wood-carving shop but the restaurant next door as well. In return for Herr Kleindienst’s promise to buy every pig that Josef could bring to him, Inga moved into the family’s household to help with their three children and do menial housework.

  And there she had stayed until she was seventeen. For all her lack of education, Inga had a keen and quick mind. Impressed with her abilities, Herr Kleindienst started her waiting tables in the restaurant when she was fourteen. From there he taught her how to clerk in the store. She learned quickly, and people liked her ready smile and pleasant manner. By the time she was sixteen, she was working full time in the store and he was paying her a small wage in addition to her bed and board.

  Inga accepted early on that she would not be what people called a handsome woman. She found her features to be plain, and her shy manners, especially around boys, did not do much to overcome that handicap. Ten years of slopping pigs had left her short frame muscular and stout. But when Herr Kleindienst started Inga working in his shop, Frau Kleindienst had taken her aside and coached her on how to present herself more favorably. She grew her hair out, reminded herself to smile until it became a habit, and chose dresses that complemented her figure.

  And that changed everything.

  Two miles west of Oberammergau and about four or five from Unterammergau, Hans Eckhardt lived with his family in the small village of Graswang. His father, Karl Eckhardt, was a Milchbauer, a dairy farmer. The village was not much larger than Inga’s village, but like Unterammergau, it had prospered because of its near proximity to Oberammergau. Nestled between pine-covered hills, Graswang was situated on land that was flat and well-drained and grew sweet meadow grass in abundance.

  The Eckhardt family of six consisted of Hans’s parents, Hans, two sisters, and a younger brother. Though they considered themselves poor, compared to the Bauers they were very prosperous. They owned about twelve acres of land, which had been in the family for several generations. Their home was of stone and had a two-story barn attached to it. They owned twelve cows, several goats, an assortment of chickens, geese, and ducks, and a horse that pulled their milk cart.

  Because of the sweetness of the grass, milk from Graswang was always in demand. And their cheese—from both the goats and the cows—was famous as far east as Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The Eckhardts were also suppliers to Herr Kleindienst’s restaurant and store. It was almost predetermined that sooner or later, Hans Eckhardt and Inga Bauer would meet.

  Since the Middle Ages, towns all over Germany had held Christkindlmarkts every year in the few weeks leading up to Christmas. Oberammergau’s “Christ Child Market” was known to be one of the finest in all of Bavaria. Farmers and merchants, toy makers and artists, shoemakers, dressmakers, tinsmiths, blacksmiths, and glassblowers—all would come from miles around, even from as far away as Munich, and set up their booths and tents in the town square. It was almost more of a fair than a market, and as much for celebration as for selling.

  Vendors sold bratwurst and pretzels, Bavarian crostini, sauerbraten, breads of every kind, a dozen kinds of cheeses, chicken, pork, and beef schnitzels, spaetzle with sauerkraut. Beer was brought in by the keg full and flowed more freely than water. Children darted everywhere, screeching for their parents to buy them this or that, their eyes dancing with excitement.

  It was the Christmas after he turned twenty-one that Hans Eckhardt delivered a fresh supply of cheese blocks, cheese curds, and milk to the Kleindiensts’ store at the height of the Christkindlmarkt. Inga saw him immediately and saw to it that she was the one who checked it off and gave him payment.

  She had first learned of him when two of the other single clerks kept talking about the devilishly handsome son of a prosperous dairy farmer from Graswang. Though she hung back the next time he came in, she found a place where she could study him. There was no question that he was handsome. He was well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a trim waist. His forearms were like cords of wood, a sure sign of a man who milked cows for a living. His hair was a light brown, almost blond, and his eyes a dark blue. He seemed somewhat sober of mien, but when he did smile, it transformed his face into something very nice. She was impressed with the air of quiet confidence he carried with him and the fact that he could barely tolerate being fawned over by her fellow clerks.

  To Inga’s surprise, as she was checking in the things he had brought, she found herself overcome by the shyness she thought she had conquered. She smiled at him and thanked him but said little else. Only later did she learn that it was that, as much as anything, that had caught his eye.

  Though he left that day without saying much more than guten Tag, when he returned to Graswang, Hans determined that he would find a reason to return to Oberammergau as often as possible before the market closed.

  When they married that next summer, Inga was eighteen and Hans was twenty-two. The people of Unterammergau were all abuzz over Inga’s astonishing good fortune. Both families were of the peasant class, but when the Bauers came to Graswang, they stood openmouthed before the Eckhardts’ home and marveled at how many round stacks of hay were in the meadow. That their daughter had married so well was cause for great jubilation. Inga’s father, warmed with a bellyful of beer, held forth at great length on how it had been his decision to send Inga to Oberammergau as a servant girl that had brought her to this happy day. Twelve years and three children later, whenever Hans and Inga went to visit Inga’s aging parents, the Unterammergauers still treated their son-in-law’s family like visiting nobility.

  And then the children had stopped coming. Hans and Inga went five years with no new babies, and Hans had begun to despair over ever getting an heir.

  February 21, 1896

  Hans Eckhardt smiled to himself. Inga’s village would be ecstatic to learn that Inga had finally blessed her husband with a son. As would all of Graswang and many in Oberammergau.

  He sat in the rocking chair, looking down at the baby cradled in the crook of his arm. Frau Hemmert was gone. As she was preparing to leave, well after midnight, he had started to get up to give her payment, but she waved him back down. “We can make settlement tomorrow,” she said wearily. Lines of exhaustion were etched deeply in her face. “Let Inga sleep as long as possible,” she said. “This was a very difficult labor.”

  “Ja, ja,” he said, still filled with wonder. He brushed the back of one finger across the incredibly soft little cheek. “I have my boy. My Inga has given me a son.”

  “Yes, Herr Eckhardt. You should be very proud.”

  Now, an hour later, he still sat in the rocking chair looking down at his newborn in wonder. This was far more than the normal pride a father feels for a newborn. He could scarcely believe it. After three daughters, a boy. And a strapping one at that. No, not just a boy. An heir!

  In the state land records at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the administrative center for this part of Bavaria, there were land records showing that Eckhardts had owned this plot of land for five unbroken generations. Now there was a sixth generation
. Now the land would not pass over to the husband of one of his daughters. For a moment, he felt like he was going to weep—something unheard of for the males in his family. It was like a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

  No, he thought, shaking his head. Five generations were only the ones they could document. His grandfather had told him that the Eckhardt name went back a thousand years. “And that blood,” Hans murmured to the baby, “now flows in your veins, my son. That heritage is now your heritage.”

  Hans pulled back the blanket a little and nodded with deep satisfaction. You could see the strength in his face. You could feel it just looking at him. His head was flattened a little from the birth, but the face would be square, with strong features: wide-set eyes, a prominent nose—my nose, he thought with a smile—a firm and determined mouth above a strong jawline. He lifted his free hand and stroked the blond hair with the tips of two fingers. It was softer than the down of a goose and would remain blond the rest of his life. Hans was sure of that.

  “What name shall we give him?”

  Hans looked up in surprise. “You shouldn’t be awake yet.”

  Inga turned over so she was fully facing him. “I’ve been watching you.” Tears of joy came to her eyes. “You and your little boy.”

  “No, my little man,” he said proudly. “Thank you, Inga. Thank you for giving us such a son.”

  “Ach!” she said. “I thought for a time that we would have to tie a rope around him and drag him out with a horse.”

  “Yes!” he cried. “He is a determined one. This one will not let anyone push him around.”

  Smiling, she asked him again. “And what shall we call him?”

  “I have already picked a name.” He wasn’t looking at her, but at the baby. He didn’t see the momentary flash of disappointment on her face. Even if he had, it likely would not have made much difference. Naming a child was the father’s responsibility. Especially naming a son. “I should like to call him Otto von Bismarck Eckhardt.”