Re: Blood and Iron

Chapter 914: The Bond of Brothers

Bruno sat in the office of the Chancellor. He was overseeing paperwork when he received a phone call from a very important subordinate.

The phone rang, once, twice, three times before Bruno picked up as he commonly allowed for. And when he did, he heard a voice on the other end he had not spoken to directly in some time.

“There were some issues with ongoing happenings in Helvetia. Some accidents were made by people involved, but they were cleaned up appropriately. I thought you should know before Military Intelligence reported to the contrary. You know how they are in the KMA. Always preferring to take a sledgehammer to issues that require the surgical precision of a scalpel.”

Bruno chuckled when he heard Maximilian’s words. He wasn’t wrong…. The current leadership of the Reichsheer heavily favored a military solution to the Helvetian question.

Over the course of the last fifty years, the German Reich had proven so overwhelmingly dominant, that within military circles, the thought of using its might to conquer all problems was almost a foregone conclusion.

It’s one of the reasons Generalfeldmarschall Hermann Göring was transferring the 3rd Fallschirm-Panzergrenadier Division “Falke” permanently to the Tyrolean Alps and keeping them on standby for immediate deployment.

This was despite these orders having been issued nearly a year prior to their current circumstances. Bruno had no doubt his grandson Erich was up to his eyeballs in paperwork managing the division’s constant state of readiness for armed conflict.

But if anyone could handle such a situation, Erich had proven the ability multiple times over. Still, Bruno knew weaponizing the hammer that was the Reichsheer for matters like this was a sub-optimal solution.

And because of this he was quick to comment with some snark.

“Perhaps our generals should focus less on the insights of Clausewitz and instead reacquaint themselves with the wisdom of Sun Tzu. ’Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence. Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”

Bruno could practically hear Maximilian’s internal thoughts on the other side of the line as the silence persisted between them.

The man clearly wanted to say something, but refused to do so out of respect, and decorum. This, of course, prompted Bruno to sigh and speak his own.

“Brother… How many years must you act like you still owe me apologies for sins committed when we were both younger and more reckless men? Speak your mind. We are both far too old to worry about such juvenile grievances, are we not?

For perhaps the first time since Bruno and Maximilian had known each other, Maximilian broke out into subtle but bittersweet laughter, a laugh that marked the collapse of the pretense he had worn for decades.

“Bruno…. You are the youngest of my brothers, and yet have always been the most wise. If I had not been there to witness your arrival into our family, I would think that you were my elder, and I were the one to follow you. There is a reason our mother loved you more than any of us. And it’s not just because you were her final son.”

Bruno had not thought about his mother in a very long time. She had died years before their father had entered the grave. He had attended the funeral, he had paid his respects as her son.

But she had passed away during a time in his life when he was busy managing the war with Japan. And since then Bruno had seldom found enough peace and quiet in his life to truly reflect on what that meant.

In his past life, Bruno was raised during the stark days of the German Democratic Republic. His father was a military man, just like his father before him. A proud hereditary tradition that Bruno seemed to share in his second chance at life albeit under very different circumstances.

However, his mother in that life had passed away when he was young. Her death was avoidable. But resulted as a failure of the state to fulfill its contract with the people.

Despite later serving in the Volksmarine as a member of KSK-18. Bruno, or Karl as he was known in that life, had never truly forgiven the failures of socialism that resulted in the untimely demise of his mother.

In this life, however, he had gained a healthy mother both of the mind and the body. She was an aristocratic and noble woman, not just of birth, but of character. One who had loved her sons more than her own life.

He had finally understood the maternal warmth he had lacked in his past life. And even now, he did not truly understand the subtle ways it had changed him.

Bruno was no longer Karl. Karl had been a man shaped by a broken world. Bruno von Zehntner had been given the chance to build a better one.

And while he carried the memories of a failed life from a timeline that had long since doomed itself. Those memories had simply given him purpose and capability.

His true character was forged through the tribulations and tempered by the celebrations of the life he had lived a second time.

As he thought about his mother, his true mother… He could only sigh and pour himself a small but measured drink.

The liquor loosened thoughts he rarely allowed himself to speak aloud.

“I miss her….”

Maximilan was surprised by this comment. And he figured Bruno wasn’t speaking directly to him, but to himself, perhaps so lost in thought he had forgotten he was on the phone.

After all, throughout his entire life, Bruno had seldom shared his innermost thoughts to anyone, other than perhaps his wife.

Neither his brothers, nor his friends, and certainly not his children had ever known the weight the man carried.

Maximilian had always known that Bruno was a man of deep and reserved complexity. And he had always expected that only Heidi had ever truly met the man who was Bruno von Zehntner.

To hear those words spoken, even if potentially accidental. It shattered a barrier Maximilian had always had in his mind. Causing him to respond in kind. Briefly, abruptly, but in memory.

“Me too….”