Chapter Two Thousand Four Hundred Fourteen
9th November 1975
Breslau, Silesia
Helene wished that Hans had talked to her before he had put pen to paper. The column that he had written had run on the front pages of every major newspaper in Germany and far beyond. Pretty much everywhere that Football was a passion. Apparently it had been his understanding that it would just appear in the sport section, but it seemed that the Editors of various newspapers had thought differently.
In it, Hans had gone on at length about how violence, both on and off the field, was ruining the game that he loved. He recounted how at a recent game it had devolved into beating up on the opposing side with little regard to playing the game. The disgust that Hans had felt witnessing that spectacle was evident. The trouble was that Hans was unaware of just how much influence he had personally. He seemed to think that what he did on television and radio wasn’t that serious. “Just on there to talk Football” was how he put it. Apparently, the viewers and listeners saw things differently. To them he was someone in a position of authority and he gave them a voice when he said that he was appalled by what he had seen on the Football Pitch in Breslau. Two teams, supposedly the best in the League, behaving like bar brawlers was unacceptable. Of course, there were partisans from this or that team who rather vocally objected to Hans’ opinion. Which was hardly a surprise because people like that were always around. Those who had the ability to feel a bit of shame went silent.
Helene understood the politics of the matter and those who in elected positions tended to look with deep suspicion. Hans on the other hand was being his usual self, he liked to say that the sporting field transcended politics. If only that were true.
In the past Helene might have asked Kat to help get through to her brother. She was good at that sort of thing except Kat was presently on a sabbatical, or at least that was how Douglas had put it. The was the most annoying thing about the release of the Abwehr Files. People who had risked and sacrificed everything during war, often with the knowledge that no one would ever know the contribution that they had made had been exposed with little effort to give context. Kat was among the handful of those people who were still alive. Those who had hated her for years had seen the Saint Petersburg incident as an opportunity to tear her down but had not considered the minor detail that many Russians considered Lavrentiy Beria to have been the Devil himself. The former Emperor, Louis Ferdinand, had made a rare public statement that was to that effect and in Kat’s defense. Between the disclosure of these files and the continuing publication of Anne Frank’s diaries, there was a good possibility that Kat was out of secrets to conceal.
Regardless of that, Kat had dropped out of public sight. Anyone who knew where she was, wasn’t interested in telling Helene for some reason.
Wahlstatt, Silesia
Over the summer, spending time on his grandfather’s estate had been like living on a different planet after spending much of the prior year in Argentina. Starting with his grandfather, everyone had treated him differently. As if he had done something great as opposed to follow along and do his best to stay out of the way of those who knew what they were doing. There was also this business with him being the Prince of Breslau. While it was the nearest city to where he had lived most of his life, he never really considered it anything special. It was where his mother worked and where to go if he needed anything from the market.
Niko’s return to Wahlstatt was also bit odd for him for the first couple months. It seemed like everyone was focused on all the wrong things he must have been doing in Argentina. They didn’t seem to grasp the reality of it. Horses, riding with the patrols, dealings with the people who lived in on the Patagonian Steppe had consumed all his time. Except for the short periods in which he had been a guest in the homes of the various landowners he had been too busy for many other considerations. Even then he had been a guest in someone else’s house, so anything other than the most honorable conduct would have ended badly for him. As it was, everyone saw that he now had a Cavalry Badge and a South America Service Medal. It took awhile for his classmates to lose interest because of that.
The other thing was that there were no more upperclassmen. After years at the school Niko’s class was at the top of the heap. The fear that the younger students had when they delt with them was obvious. This was despite never having done anything to them. It seemed that they had their ears filled with stories about brutal hazing, which was expressly forbidden. Anyone who thought that it was funny found themselves dealing with Bas who didn’t like those who kicked down. At the same time, Bas had the Olympics coming up, so everyone was treating him like he was already a hero. Niko had been asked if he had any plans in that regard, he had thought that it was already too late for that.