Chapter 269

< World War II - A Wine for You >

September 14, 1942

Central Germany, near Saxony – Prison

Jean-François de La Rocque.

The former Prime Minister of France, who led France against Germany in World War II, sat facing me in the prison's visitation room wearing handcuffs.

"It has been a while. Former Prime Minister La Rocque."

"It is a pleasure to meet you.

Now… you are no longer a Deputy Minister, but a Minister, I see?"

"Haha, indeed. I have moved up in the world."

La Rocque smiled warmly at my joke.

Going from a 'Deputy Minister' of the Ministry of the Chancellor to the 'Minister' of the Ministry of Defense and Propaganda, just hearing the titles, it was definitely a promotion.

As for his health, well…

He looks better than I had feared.

La Rocque stared at me quietly before opening his mouth.

"German prisons are quite a nice place to live. You can learn the news of the outside through newspapers, and they even provide medical treatment."

Having suffered injuries as an officer fighting in World War I, he was receiving steady treatment in his own way so as not to suffer from the aftereffects of those injuries even during his imprisonment.

He is one of the main culprits who started World War II, yet he is being treated with German taxes. The optics are a bit delicate, but it is a necessary measure.

I gave a bitter smile.

"Germany tends to pay a bit more special attention to you, former Prime Minister."

Even in this history, the gruesome reality of Nazi Germany's concentration camps acted as a backlash, making German prisons relatively livable places.

Even so, the steady, sincere health care and the direct delivery of gifts sent by the French people are clearly special exceptions.

In a certain sense.

He could be said to be in the same position as Hitler after the Munich Beer Hall Putsch.

A man who failed, but is hailed as a patriot.

La Rocque also gave a bitter smile similar to mine.

"I have been writing an autobiography lately."

"Hmm.

Could it perhaps be…"

"Hmm?"

"Is the title 'Mein Kampf', perhaps?"

La Rocque showed truly the straightest facial expression I had ever seen on him.

"Ah, I am sorry. It was just a joke."

"…You enjoy rather tasteless jokes."

It took quite some time for La Rocque to relax his straight facial expression.

Mein Kampf. The book Hitler wrote and published from the prison he was incarcerated in after the Munich Putsch.

Well, I was just trying to make a joke in my own way, but was this still a bit too far?

"Ahem, I am sorry."

True, the Hitler of this history preached a clumsily pieced together Nazism and illusions full of delusions, only to collapse in the ugliest form without achieving a single thing.

Still, comparing Hitler to La Rocque, who was practically the founder of Gaullism, or rather French Fascism, might have been a bit too much.

After a brief, awkward silence, La Rocque opened his mouth.

"Hah, I suppose so. In the eyes of the Minister, I might be no different from him."

…Wait, why are you making such a hurt face while saying that?

Did I somehow build a deep friendship with a French politician in his fifties without even realizing it?

"A-Ah, no. It was strictly a joke. Really."

Feeling like a piece of trash after tossing out a single joke, I reeled off a pathetic excuse, but La Rocque let out a deep sigh.

"Then again, perhaps there really is no difference."

"…"

The last time we met, La Rocque had said that this was the only path for him and France.

Could there have been a change of heart since then?

"The craftiness of the German Ministry of Propaganda, which didn't just treat the French Army as an expendable pawn but gave them a chance to perform and packaged them as if they were a member of the Allied Powers, was truly…"

La Rocque paused for a moment as if choosing his words, then opened his mouth with a smile.

"Admirable."

"As Germany's Minister of Propaganda, that is an evaluation I am grateful for."

I've become quite sly myself, haven't I?

As I smiled subtly while feeling that way myself, La Rocque smiled bitterly and opened his mouth.

"I managed to protect the Grand Army somehow, wanting to at least leave behind some glory for France to claim in the future, but the Minister turned even the glory that the Grand Army was meant to protect into Germany's share."

"It is France's share, as well."

"Under Germany's order."

I only smiled and did not answer.

No one wants to be a loser.

Everyone wants to stand on the side of the victor.

Let alone in World War II of this world, which will be packaged like a great crusade of the Free World against totalitarianism and dictatorship.

Even though the French people lost the war, they fought together against the threat of Communism as if they were one of the Allied Powers.

The great victory achieved by Charles de Gaulle was subtly slipped in as one of the victories of the Allied Powers.

No one granted France the acknowledgment of being an Allied Power, but no one subjected them to the underestimation of claiming they weren't.

With just that, the highly proud French people will subtly come to think that they were on the side of the victor, the side of the Allied Forces.

The Germany of World War I thoroughly considered themselves victims, and had a clear target of hatred.

However, the France of World War II has no such thing.

Though they were defeated, they believe they have protected their pride, and our measures do not reach the realm where the French people would curse Germany, claiming they cannot live.

"I hear you are creating a Coal and Steel Community with France?"

"Yes. That is correct.

France has an abundance of steel in the Lorraine region, and Germany has plenty of the coal that France lacks, so isn't it a mutually beneficial arrangement?"

If we had made all of Alsace-Lorraine independent or taken it away, something like this would have been absolutely impossible.

No matter how tolerant a peace agreement we had made, it would all be meaningless if we had ripped away Lorraine, which produces most of France's steel and has a large population of French descent.

However, by granting Alsace independence through a vote as per their demands, and leaving Lorraine as it was, we also managed in our own way to prevent France from wallowing in a victim complex and crying out for revenge.

If so, the next step is simply stringing them along with appropriate fruits, making them think it's better to profit together rather than go out of their way to mount a backlash against Germany.

During the time they were hostile to Germany, France had to squeeze their struggling economy to construct the Maginot Line and maintain their Navy in order to preserve their colonies and counter the fear of Germany's threat, all while suffering from the aftereffects of the Great Depression.

However, post-war France was forced into the liberation of their colonies excluding Algérie, and since the Navy they had to possess to maintain them was also gone, their economic burden actually decreased.

If Germany, having already grasped France's major companies in its hands, properly controls them and solidifies cooperative economic relations, the French people will come to realize the fact that life is better when they are with Germany than when they stand against Germany.

We have to make them realize it even if they hate it.

We already hold more than enough cards in our hands to do so.

And La Rocque seemed to have deduced what my, or rather our, vision was just by reading the news in the newspapers delivered to him while locked inside the prison.

And he became certain of it through our conversation just now.

"Haha, hahaha…"

La Rocque let out a dry laugh and then opened his mouth.

"I was up against a monster, I see."

"That is a bit harsh to say. I believe that, either way, Germany and France can achieve more things when working together than when fighting. And I plan to make it so."

Bismarck employed a conciliatory policy towards Austria, but prescribed atrocious measures to make France alone beyond recovery, only to meet an ending where he was appalled by the latent power of the French people.

France also engaged in a desperate struggle through the Treaty of Versailles and the occupation of the Ruhr to plunge Germany beyond recovery somehow, but the ending they ultimately met was World War II.

Let alone the fact that even Germany, after losing World War II, was reborn as the hegemon of Europe once again.

In a Europe where human rights and national consciousness have already risen, plunging a major power that defined an era beyond recovery is not realistic in itself.

If so, the solution is simple.

"If we've fought for hundreds of years, isn't it about time we slowly put an end to it?"

Hearing my words, La Rocque let out a hollow laugh and shook his head.

In fact, I do feel a bit of a bitter mood.

Honestly, looking solely at individual ability, La Rocque would have a vast superiority over me.

I possessed future knowledge, and even if there were issues in grand strategy, I capably led the greatest collective of the era.

On the other hand, La Rocque prepared a meticulous plan despite a shortage of time, yet he lost due to France's inherent flaws and its superficially flashy allies.

La Rocque is being packaged within France as a patriot who was competent in his own right, but simply lacked luck.

However, that is merely a facade for Pétain's own legitimacy.

As the era flows on, La Rocque will eventually be criticized in accordance with his responsibilities.

Whether he was truly competent or not, the result that will remain in history is that of a leader who committed a betrayal against an ally and nearly brought ruin to his fatherland.

As Germany implements a conciliatory policy towards France after the war, and as relations with France improve, he will be evaluated like that even more.

Even if he was a politician with the ability to put the Allied Forces on the defensive, if only temporarily, in a war with no prospect, and did his best to at least prevent France's ruin.

In history, he will ultimately be condemned as the root of all evil, shouldering the animosity towards Germany and the totalitarianism of France in this era all by himself.

La Rocque let out a hollow laugh for a long while before opening his mouth.

"When we were first defeated by Germany, I thought we were unlucky. I thought perhaps there might be a next opportunity for France."

La Rocque bit his lip for a moment after saying that, and then spoke.

"But it was a mistake. From the start, there was no way for me to win, Minister."

Saying that, La Rocque's face finally looked like an old man fitting his age.

The man ahead of his era, who cried out that he would make France great again, and even argued that not only the French race but also the colonial subjects could become equal citizens under a great France, was gone.

"…I had the resolve to proudly face the death penalty for France, though."

He will have no such opportunity.

Thanks to briefly stabilizing the highly unstable French political situation prior to the Great War and driving their archnemesis, Britain, to the brink of collapse, the right wing in France still follows La Rocque to this day.

Even those who criticized La Rocque would commemorate him if La Rocque, who walked into becoming a war criminal on his own two feet to gift peace to France, were executed at the hands of Germany; there would be more than enough of them.

He will spend a relatively physically comfortable life for a long time in Germany, receiving medical treatment funded by the citizens' blood taxes and also receiving gifts sent from France.

"You know that Germany has no reason to do that, don't you?"

"Hahahaha…"

Even so, sending La Rocque back to France would only leave him with a witch hunt for the sake of Pétain's legitimacy.

He wouldn't even receive the amount of packaging he does now, and would simply meet a miserable ending as a politician who failed in the most shameful and disgraceful manner.

Pétain likely wouldn't want to go that far either, and what came out of that is a 500-Year Prison Sentence strictly for political reasons.

There is no prospect of him serving the entire sentence, but from the stance of the Allied Powers, it is a symbolic punishment, and from France's stance, they can at least achieve a delusional victory by claiming it isn't the death penalty anyway.

A bitter ending for a man who cried out for a great France, possessing both ability and patriotism.

La Rocque smiled with a bitter face and spoke.

"I do not suppose the person with real power in Germany would have any special business with an atrocious sinner who can do nothing like me, but still, I am grateful that you came to visit me even once like this."

The man who had calmly faced all kinds of criticism from the Allied Powers at the peace negotiation venue, not to mention during his meetings with me, spoke with the distinct face of an old man.

"I was so bored I felt like I was going to die. Hahaha."

I waited for a moment while La Rocque let out a bitter smile, and then opened my mouth.

"Actually, I have a separate reason for my visit."

"Business, you mean? With me, who can do nothing?"

To the puzzled La Rocque, I gave a warm smile, stood up from my seat, and pressed the bell.

Then, a moment later, the door to the visitation room opened, and a tall man with a blunt facial expression entered.

I smiled at La Rocque, who was staring blankly with his mouth open, and said.

"Since this is not an opportunity that comes around often, I will excuse myself."

The man holding a bottle of high-quality French wine in his hand, Charles de Gaulle, exchanged a light nod with me as I left, and then stood facing La Rocque.

Even though he was my enemy, rather than engaging in a desperate struggle shedding blood meaninglessly, he was a leader who brought it upon himself to become the loser of the era, shouldering all the burdens so that both countries could face a relatively better future.

It was my own kind of gift for him.

"I hope you two can thoroughly catch up."

Saying so, I closed the door.