Chapter 709: The Rot of Liberty
Berlin, October 1938. The autumn wind cut through the capital with a dry chill, scattering golden leaves through the marble courtyards of the New Imperial Chancellery.
Black, white, and crimson banners hung proudly from the colonnades, their fabric snapping in rhythm with the breeze.
Inside, the mood was far warmer, if no less electric.
In the grand war chamber beneath the dome of the Reich Chancellery, a crowd of dignitaries and senior officers stood in tight formations.
The marble floor bore the iron cross inlaid in obsidian and bronze; above it, the Kaiser’s eagle looked down from the stained-glass ceiling with imperious judgment.
A film reel clicked to life.
Projected against the wall-sized screen at the end of the hall, raw newsreel footage from Buenos Aires played, chaotic, grainy, real.
Flames leapt from the side of the U.S. consulate as panicked diplomats spilled into the streets.
Protesters surged past barricades, their chants alternating between "Liberty or death!" and "Down with the imperial dollar!"
A few flags, some red, some black, some suspiciously well-printed, were raised in defiance.
Ideologies of every banner flocked to the streets to fight for their ideals, against the government they deemed corrupt and purchased by foreign entities, and against each other.
"The American ambassador is reportedly in hiding," the projectionist announced.
"Unconfirmed reports suggest the mob was guided by agitators trained abroad. But nothing has been traced back to us. Argentine authorities have declared martial law as a result of the chaos."
Murmurs rippled through the gathered brass.
Bruno, leaning against the carved edge of the long central table, smiled faintly.
In the soft gleam of the projector, his medals caught the light.
His posture was relaxed, but his eyes were sharp, calculating.
"Play the next," he said, voice calm.
The screen flickered again.
Now: Norfolk, Virginia.
Aerial footage, likely smuggled out by a collaborator posing as a foreign news agent, panned across clouds of smoke rising from the shipyards.
The crowd below, once a workers’ union protest, had degenerated into open revolt after news of food shortages and pay cuts for military families surfaced.
A single lunch box hurled by a worker to a friend had accidentally triggered a wave of violence that swept through the port city like a contagion.
The climax came in sharp contrast: a U.S. Army unit firing volley after volley into the crowd.
Screams. Bodies. American citizens bleeding out on the soil of their homeland, not from foreign attack, but from the very government that claimed to protect them.
A younger officer near the back gasped. Another whispered, "My God..."
Kaiser Wilhelm II rose slowly from his high-backed throne-like chair at the head of the room.
His frame was older now, brittle even, but his blue eyes burned with that same imperial fire they had in the last war.
He adjusted his iron-grey mustache with one gloved hand before glancing toward Bruno.
"And to think," the old emperor said, "that there was once those among the Reichstag who envied their Republic...."
A low chuckle swept through the room like distant thunder.
Bruno nodded once, then turned to the others.
"Gentlemen, what you are seeing is not chaos. It is pressure applied at the correct fault lines. Strategic strikes without a single rifleman landing on their shores."
Heinrich stood beside him, his uniform immaculate, chest weighed down by new medal, most notably the newly awarded Grand Cross of the Iron Cross, granted for his direction of the France campaign.
The once youthful face of the Reich’s formerly most notorious bachelor now bore the seasoned look of duty. Duty to family, duty to faith, and duty to fatherland.
He said nothing, but folded his arms in satisfaction, his eyes gleaming with calculation.
Bruno continued. "With only a few shipments of weapons, some well-placed agitators, and the slow drip of propaganda into their brittle social veins, we’ve incited riots in four major cities. Their press is calling it ’coordinated civil unrest.’ Their generals fear a second civil war. We haven’t fired a single missile on their soil. Nor dropped a single bomb. Not one."
He tapped the projector table once, gently.
"They are tearing themselves apart with just the slightest push from our own clandestine forces and collaborators in the region. If this continues, we may not even need to land an invasion force across the Atlantic. Why spill blood in Manhattan, when the Americans will spill it for us in Chicago?"
Laughter now, louder this time.
One of the admiralty chiefs leaned in to whisper something to his aide.
Another general jotted notes on a clipboard bearing the black eagle of Imperial Military Intelligence.
At the far end of the room, a diplomatic liaison from the Russian Tsardom adjusted his monocle.
"Your methods are... effective," he said diplomatically, "though we did not expect them to unravel so quickly."
Bruno glanced his way with a polite nod.
"The American mind has always rested upon the illusion of stability. When you poke the curtain and show them the scaffolding is rusted, it does not take much more for the structure to collapse."
Wilhelm II smiled at that, tapping his cane twice on the stone floor.
"We are witnessing," the Kaiser declared, "not merely the decay of a nation, but the triumph of our century. We sit at the center of the world, while their supposed beacon of liberty burns from within."
A thunderous round of applause followed.
But Bruno’s expression remained cool, thoughtful.
He turned to Heinrich, voice low enough only for his friend to hear. "I want full reports on the domestic fault lines still untapped, New York’s labor unions, Detroit’s black market, San Francisco’s radical press. If we press at just the right moments, they’ll shatter without us ever having to march."
Heinrich nodded, already making mental calculations.
"We’ve also made contact with several other South American governments than the one our operatives are already established within. Some are willing to turn a blind eye to our agents operating through Panama and Venezuela, provided we grease the right palms."
Bruno narrowed his eyes. "Do it."
The lights came back on. The room shifted, generals breaking off into discussion, analysts poring over maps of the western hemisphere.
Beyond the high windows, the distant sounds of Berlin’s street musicians drifted up, accordion and violin, joyful and oblivious.
A young courier stepped briskly into the chamber with a sealed dispatch. He handed it to Bruno with a salute and retreated. Bruno sliced the envelope open.
He skimmed it, then passed it to Wilhelm.
"Chicago. Three dead in a firefight between National Guard and union militants. The spark is spreading faster than anticipated."
The Kaiser handed it off to his adjutant with a wave. "Then let it burn."
Bruno exhaled slowly.
For all his confidence in the plan, for all the brilliance of manipulating an empire to self-immolation, he understood the risk.
The Americans might be fractured, but they were still formidable.
An enemy desperate enough to face internal ruin might lash out irrationally, desperately.
He stepped to the wall map and stared at the red pins marking every active theater of clandestine influence: Havana. Panama. Chicago. Caracas. New Orleans. Dallas. Atlanta.
All dots. All dry wood awaiting a spark.
And still, he whispered, "There will come a point where chaos is no longer our ally. There will come a moment when the serpent tries to consume its own tail. We must strike before that moment."
Heinrich stepped beside him. "Or guide the tail toward its throat."
Bruno smirked at that.
At the far end of the room, the latest live feed from Radio Berlin began to play.
A broadcast from an organization in New York sympathetic to the German Reich.
A man with a thick accent shouted about corruption in Washington, about forgotten veterans, about the return to order and strength.
And behind him flew an American flag. Its infamous red and white stripes proudly on display.
But in the blue square there were no longer stars representing the number of states, but rather a crowned double headed bald eagle, in one hand carrying a sword and scepter, in the other an orb of sovereignty.
A symbol no longer of American pride, and ideals, but rather of discontent with the very ideals the Republic was founded upon and the chaos which inevitably resulted from them.
The camera zoomed in on the crowd: thousands gathered, fists raised not in hope, but in anger.
Bruno turned back to the gathered officers.
"Let this be our doctrine moving forward," he said, raising his voice. "We do not need to conquer the world with tanks alone. We simply need to ensure our enemies cannot hold themselves together. Victory is not always forged in fire. Sometimes... it’s carved from rot."
The officers saluted.
And beyond the high glass dome, the eagle of the Reich watched it all, wings outstretched, as if already embracing the world below.
While the New World burned in the fires of its own making, the German Reich consolidated its gains, reinforced its positions, and turned its weapons westward across the Atlantic, preparing for the day this war entered its next stage.