Determined to prove a villain

Flats in Berlin

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:13:53 GMT

At the moment I'm looking for somewhere to buy in Europe for postgrad work (2011 onwards). London is expensive, Cambridge is expensive (but with any luck I'll be in residence and won't have to rent somewhere) so I started thinking about where I would like to live, rather than what may be practical. (However NSW alone has as much land area as Germany, so I don't consider the trip from, say, London to Berlin as being anything more major than Sydney to Adelaide. (Although I'm not quite sure why people would want to go to Adelaide, but never mind.) So I've hit upon Berlin as my city of choice, with London as a close second. I'm supposed to be looking for a flat with at most 2 bedrooms, preferably in Berlin Mitte, e.g Hackischen Marckt (where I last stayed), but I'm such a history whore than any old-looking house catches my eye.
After trawling through a few dozen internet pages, I found the most awesome house photo I had yet seen. I gleefully clicked on the link, only to find...
...that it was the Haus am Grossen Wannsee.

The first thought that popped into my head was "Oh bugger, it's a museum." The second thought was that scene in Conspiracy when Heydrich is twirling around in the entrance hall and suddenly exclaims, "I like this house! When the war has finished, I think I shall live here!" with that amused insistence that only Kenneth Brannagh can manage.

So I want to live in the house in which the Endlösung acquired its first bureaucratic machinery. I'm not quite sure what to make of that...

Til Schweiger, Thomas Kretschmann and Matthias Schweighöfer all in the same film?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:39:57 GMT

Til Schweiger, Thomas Kretschmann and Matthias Schweighöfer all in the same film? It may be a bonus that Zewiohrküken will probably never show its selfish, perfect-Aryan-hogging face in Australian cinemas, because I will probably faint from all the attractiveness. If it turns out to be two hours of the three of them watching paint dry, or getting their hair cut, or picking their noses, I would pay money to see it anyway. Yes, I would pay to see Thomas Kretschmann's nostrils. Shut up.

Here's the only bit of information I can scrape up about the loveliness:
Zweiohrküken (from Dailymotion - June 29, 2009)
Duration: 160
Schauspieler : Thomas Kretschmann, Til Schweiger, Ken Duken, Matthias Schweighöfer, Nora Tschirner Produktion : barefoot films Direktor : Til Schweiger
Kurzinhalt : Ludo und Anna zwei Jahre später .... der Alltag ist eingekehrt. Als Ludo eine alte Flamme wiedertrifft, wird Anna eifersüchtig ... mit Recht! Die Gute ist offensichtlich noch ziemlich interessiert. Ludo wehrt sich, auch mit Recht, gegen Annas Kontrollversuche und fordert Freiraum ein. Dummerweise taucht just zu diesem Zeitpunkt Annas Ex-Freund Ralf auf und plötzlich gefällt Ludo der neue Freiraum gar nicht mehr so gut...

While we're at it, here's an interview on The Pianist with Thomas and Adrien Body, which is interesting in its own right, not just because there is a very distracting picture of TK in uniform that makes me want to give him a hug. It's so clear that although he's playing a Wehrmacht officer rather than a Nazi, he's still slightly uncomfortable in the uniform with all its connotations. (It fits the character perfectly, since Hauptmann Hosenfeld is supposed to be considering the moral position he's in, I'm just extrapolating here.)

Just to cheer myself up after that, (as usual, click for the whole image)
.

I never thought English could be amusing; Inglorious Bastards parody

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:59:14 GMT

I renewed correspondence with my old English tutor the other day and his reply amused me. Why isn't there a web comic featuring game NPCs duelling each other with the quality of their elegaic couplets rather than shruiken-expelling, eau-de-cologne-jet blasting BFGs?

There has been considerable controversy over the Dickinson selection of poems [for the Australian version of the A-levels] because the Board [of Studies, controlling the evil exams] has opted for the out-of-date Reeves version. Sydney Grammar [an expensive school] challenged the Board to a duel at 10 iambic pentameters. The Board's seconds gave in without even an enjambment, and Franklin's 1996 scholarship and Johnson's 1956 patchwork were finally ruled in as acceptable alternatives. But, connecting the poems to 'belonging' has reduced almost everyone to 'Zero at the Bone' anyway.

For about a month now I have been attempting to write an honest and amusing review of the new QT film, located as it is in a parallel universe in which all Americans are thoughtless villains and all Wehrmacht officers are colossal morons. I should be rejoicing this, as all too often it's the other way around, but try as I might, I can't recommend this film. It sets up expectations so high that a V2 couldn't get over them, only to dash the audience's hopes the very next scene, which left my pleasure in the film bouncing madly up and down like the tennis scores in a Rainer Schüttler match. And just like a Schüttler match, it ended badly.

gulp

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:18:24 GMT

PANIC Condensed Matter Physics assignment due PANIC Astrophysics due EXTRA PANIC Partial Differential Equations eeeek! (although that was slightly cool that the lecturer has swastikas all over his notes, perhaps that means I can write "Sieg Heil!" and get marks, if not PANIC PANIC. Oh yes, and cosmological research project due PANIC 15000 words left PANIC draft due Monday 5pm PANIC, one week to presentation PANIC PANIC PANIC.
How am I going to write fanfic when all I'm doing is getting STRESSED?

Hang on, I found some pictures of Til Schweiger in PINSTRIPE UNDERWEAR. Hahahaha!

Fic rec: Heydrich 100 words. Prompt: cheat.

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:12:42 GMT

There are so many little details that leave me thinking "Why didn't I think of that? It's perfect." Heydrich is never capable of relaxing from his analysing, the mention of blitzkrieg, which evokes so many connotations, all the epicurean touches like the cognac and cigarettes, the last sentence. I wish I could write compactly yet evoke emotion: all that Latin epic wants me to vomit words like a diabetic who has just consumed half a case of lemonade, spewing words from every orifice and making my sentences ooze from every pore in a giant cascade of wordiness. Tortured metaphors aside, a picture is worth a thousand words, right? To summarise this drabble:

46: Cheat

(On a somewhat related note, my PDEs lecturer wanted to highlight that something was very important, so he drew a swastika on the board next to an equation and said "I hope this gets your attention every time! It's very, very important! I'll do this every time a linearisation appears." Since practically the while course is about linearising, we're going to have a lot of swastikas on our notes. I wish I'd been close enough to the German exchange student to see his expression.)

Day of WIN

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:33:54 GMT

If I ever need a definition of total langweilig I will simply get out my timetable and show the dictionary-allergic twat the column for Tuesday. Today was an exception.

My research project is practically finished: I made the change today from a universe in which all the "fluids" went from being separate to interacting, e.g. dark energy can decay into matter or photons. (Everything decays into light eventually.) Instead of me having to re-derive all the differential equations from general relativity, my supervisor turned up with a pair of ready-to-code PDEs, then did all the coding work for me and debugged the lot! (FUCK YEAH!) Then he postponed my TALK OF DOOM for a week (maybe two) which is pretty damn sweet, since I'm one of those terrible people who have to write the paper before they present the talk, instead of using the outline of the talk slides as a summary of the paper. So I now have another fortnight to write 15 000 words. (And get images, references, graphs etc., which is what actually takes the time.)

Then the quantum theory lecturer cancelled all forthcoming lectures because we have apparently...finished the course. Three weeks and nine lectures early. So I had a free period, in which I attempted to do my report, but got sidetracked into David Irving (don't ask), Rommel without his shirt off and whether or not Himmler and Heydrich had some kind of funky self-hating relationship on the side. In which my acquaintence seemed a little too interested, to be honest, since he evetually decided that a D/s subverting, envy-fuelled, homoerotic obsession betwen the two most powerful people in the SS was a dead certainty.
(Actually, that sounds like brilliant fanfic material. Please? Seriously, I'd want this fic more than the kinky Landa/Hellstrom/Stiglitz blackmailing, triple-agent, language-kink fanfic of awesome. However, I have not been interested in slash for that long, since it all seems to be written from the POV of thirteen year old girls with funny obsessions about leather trousers and people called Draco, so for once I have a legitimate excuse to be on the recieving end of fic for a change.)

But I digress. This afternoon, I discovered my marks for the assignment of DOOM, for which at least two people scored full marks and a thid got 29/30. Whoever you are, you've just ruined my chance of getting a Cambridge scholarship and thus entering that hallowed hall of cosmological badassery (fuck you, pound-dollar exchange rate and 66 000 pound PhD fees), but you probably aspire to be Macquarie Bank financiers, so I'm glad you're practising for your future existence as aggravating, pus-filled douches. </ rant> I'm not getting stressed about this 94% pass mark at all, am I?

The good news is that I scored a respectable 25/30, so while its not the 94 I need - unless the gods of fate smile upon me and scale my marks up for once - it's a mark that probably demonstrates that I worked to the best of my ability, instead of being a procrastinating moron wasting my intelligence on physics projects, Lagrangian Dynamics and Third Reich alternate history novels.

To close, apparently Rainer Schüttler won his first-round match today, which means he's just won four matches in a row. I reserve for this an expression which has, if my memory serves me correctly, not been used for a few years: FUCK YEAH, since I feel a strange affinity for him. (Namely, that however much I strive at something or how well I want to do, my results are always relative to other people's, so when they do better than I in those key moments that determine the year's outcome, I always feel like a twat that could have been up there with the best, if only X had happened.) But I digress. I feel terribly sorry for the poor man: he ended last year on an incredible high, getting into the semis at Wimbledon, but seemed to lose his nerve in a couple of crucial matches and bombed out, pretty much instigating a giant losing streak. Why should I feel sorry for a famous sports star, who has US$6 000 000 in prize money in the bank and gets autograph requests, probably in perfumed envelopes, from single women, I hear you ask. No, it's not because he is tall, blond and German, although that helps. He appears to embody a dying breed: the chivalrous gentleman, who is graceful in defeat (well he's had a lot of practice), magnanimous in victory and enjoys what he does without attempting the ultimately futile goal of appeasing one's hardcore fan base.

I'll take any exucse to post pictures like this, honestly. ~~Pity he's not wearing the...right kind of Hugo Boss...if you get my drift.~~

So yes, today was generally awesome. Tomorrow, no doubt my good mood will evaporate, as I have to represent the USyd physics society at the annual Clubs and Societies night and frankly I can't think of many things that appeal to me less than dressing up in a skimpy Bollywood costume when the wind will probably blow everything off, going through the motions of interacting with a bunch of boring people who have too much enthusiasm for dancing and cheap booze and not enough for my cultural pretensions. Like nice wine and conversations containing at least one word that has more than three syllables in it. At least I'll have the German Club Oktoberfest to warm up for it.

Fic rec: Inglorious Basterds; RL stress

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 11:19:00 GMT

See this fic? Read it. Now, otherwise Rommel will bend you over his knee and spank you with his Field Marshal's baton.
Opposite and Complement, translation
Gegenstück und Ergänzung, original
Ooops, that sounds like a good incentive to misbehave to me. ~~Shades of Monty Python and the Holy Grail anyone?~~

On a totally unrelated note, here's Himmler in a dress.

I need cheering up after today: my assignment is going downhill faster than a hyperactive extreme skier, yet I'm not allowed to drop the subject because it's too late in the semester. My only last-ditch resort would be to take up lab, but it's physically impossible to do that and complete the 2 credit points of work I would need to replace the theory. Nor will the physics co-ordinator let me expand my research project into 6cp instead of 4cp to make up the total. (WTF? You'd think he'd be happier that I was spending my time trying to get something up to paper quality, submit to journal standard than tearing my hair out, but noooo.) You know what the cherry on the Schwarzwalderkirschtorte is? The subject starts in week 7, so it's too late to drop it even before the first lecture starts!
I never, ever thought I would want to drop astrophysics, or that I wouldn't have a chance at an honours scholarship. But now? I'd be happy to pass the fucking subject.

Thomas Kretschmann dragged naked from bed by SS men.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:40:12 GMT

If that didn't get your attention, nothing will! To cut a long story short, I trawl the internet for footage of this man and scarf it down as soon as I find it, like I have some kind of wasting illness of the eyes and if I don't get my daily dose of Kretschmann I will expire on the spot. I am now officially known in the video shop as "the one who asks after obscure foreign films" because I've picked their brains so many times (and have started ordering the films in just to shut me up). I sat through hours of Tom Cruise in Valkyrie (and endured his dreadful German intro) just to enjoy watching someone who could act and not destroy my sense of immersion like a mouse being run over by a Panzer.

While indulging my habit of scouring the internet for more Thomas footage, I came across crockett89's video series, which is an "alternate history," a kind of "Thomas biography" that one would get if all the Nazis he played were the one person, who evolved into each character. That rambling probably didn't make sense because the timeline in the film jumps around a lot, plus there's a future insertion bit that turns the whole film into "give Thomas time-travelling powers and a Wehrmacht uniform."

1. Teil: Boese Vergangenheit-Svenson & Gielen- We know what you did
2. Teil: 1945-Wolfsheim-The Sparrows and The Nightingales
Part 3 appears to be missing/deleted
4. Teil: Ewige Kriegsschuld-Schiller mit Heppner-Dream of you

Clips are from (in no particular order):
Der Untergang
Immortal
The Pianist
Stalingrad
War film I can't identify (men in the forest, 4. Teil) - could be Steiner das eiserne Kreuz
Another mystery film (man, daughter, evil SS officer, 2. Teil)
There may be some other ons that I have omitted because I don't recognise the sources.

In one of the clips there is a brief shot (ack! pun totally unintended) showing Thomas being dragged from a bed without any clothes on. I would love to know which film this is from: I strongly suspect Der Untergang. (Hermann Fegelein, you naughty boy.)

More Phobs' fanart!

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:14:09 GMT

Wie kommen wir am besten zum Gasthaus bitte?
This gentleman has talent! He should certainly be making money from his amazing artwork.

Inglorious Bastards fanfic (M, all 7 permutations of Landa/Stiglitz/Hellstrom)

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:51:48 GMT

While Landa waits for sleep to drown his troubles, he listens to the swish of the sea against the shore and revels in the simple pleasure of the ocean breeze cooling his bare skin. The eagle resting within his soul is content, most of the time, to perch in its eyrie and accept its veneer of American symbolism of peace and freedom and whatever other patriotic Quatsch his neighbours start on about whenever his accent slips. Yet der Adler cannot always be caged: when it spreads its wings he seeks out the danger and imperious cruelty of the Alps, his mortal body trapped in his soul's Germanic claws.

Stiglitz is rarely troubled by his actions during the war: he banishes the memories by reaching for his slightly dull, American wife and her curvaceous, undiminished by rations, American body and her more-than-slightly-irritating, nasal, American snores. He bends his mouth to her soft warmth, smiling when his teeth scrape her nipple and her hips buck even in sleep and he waits for her to wrap her arms around his neck, pull his face back to the level of hers and moan that they've made love once already this week and were all his countrymen this bloody insatiable? Yet not all nights permit him such solace. Tonight his questing fingers brush hard muscle, without a spare pound of flesh gracing such a powerful frame. Reflexively he rests his head on the other's shoulder blade, feeling soft, even breaths wash over the nape of his neck. There is a faint 'ah' of satisfaction as his hands give into the temptation to explore such a finely crafted body, chiselled from finest marble for all the reaction there is to his touch. He grins, teeth flashing in the dawn light, and because he's been dreaming about speaking in German and spilling German blood and watching Donny and the others sate themselves in the mouths of petrified, trembling Germans, there is no self-control to specify his language when he growls into his bedfellow's ear that no, he is not going to 'make love,' he wants to fuck until neither of them have any strength left. Tonight there is no satisfaction of hearing her breath quicken and feeling her hands grasp urgently at his night clothes while "No, not now, I won't be able to walk tomorrow," becomes "Hugo, darling Hugo, please, pleasepleaseplease."
Instead his own pulse staccatos at the amused speech: "Stiglitz, was für eine Motive hast du, um das zu machen? Möchtest du etwas von mir?"
A warm finger trails gently down his cheek and he will not look his former officer in the eye, he won't, because he knows that the molten gaze is just waiting to pull him beneath its surface and drown him forever.

asdhjk; This fic has started to write itself in German and French and Latin poetry. which would be fine, except that I can never be arsed to write a translation, since it never sounds right in English.

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:39:11 GMT

The last week has been - incalculably - mediocre. After I received an impromptu extension on my PDEs assignment, I though things were looking up: I had another 10 hours to finish the question 5 of doom, a Stammtisch on Wednesday night and a Fench Society Kaffepause (yes, I know it's German, I just can't think of the English work for what I want) to which I could look forward. At the Stammtisch the bartender gave me change appropriate to a $20 not a $50, scurried off downstairs before I could tell her about it, then rebuked me for not informing her earlier when I brought up the issue. She counted all the money in the till twice (after insisting that she would only count the night's takings, not before) and came up $10 short. I don't care that she said "because I am a nice person, I gave you the schnitzel and wine at a 50% discount," the rosiness of her personality clearly has nothing to do with her counting skills, since she came up $40 short at the end of the night. A lot of uni people are therefore wandering around with incorrect amounts of change at the moment. I talked to Dad about it, since he used to run a restaurant: he agreed with me that it's not the money that is the issue, since I ended up paying only $10 more than I normally would have (I got a free glass of cognac and the "access" discount to which I am not entitled because I didn't fork out %100 in union fees), but the principle that if she makes one error, there's no way of knowing how consistent she is.

Anyway, it is no longer my problem. Having convinced myself of this, I went to the French society Kaffepause, which was surprisingly empty for such an event, only to encounter a meek Japanese exchange student who, upon learning that this wasn't a conversation class and she wasn't entitled to free food and drink because she wasn't even a USyd student, let alone a society member, became the Crazy Double Personality Student. That certainly put a damper on events. I left shortly afterwards, discontent with the (not National) Socialists Arts caricatures who remained at the event (one in tears after Crazy Lady).

Fortunately on the weekend I discovered a new clothes shop during an unusual bout of shopping. The owner was German (it turns out that she had stayed as a student in Cochem, which is where my mother used to live) and an enormous fan of Thomas Kretschmann. We spent some time swooning over ~~the Master Race poster boy~~ Thomas, August Diehl and Daniel Bruhl (both in Inglorious Bastards) and she highly recommended Til Schweiger. Both Bruhl and Schweiger were in films with Thomas (In Enemy Hands and In Tranzit, in which TK and DB remove all their clothes. Just for symmetry, since everyone else is in uniform, here's Thomas in uniform too. However, the droolworthy fact of the week is not the growing list of attractive men with nice green passports, but that the shopkeeper's sister went clubbing in Berlin and spent most of the night dancing with Daniel Bruhl...until her best friend said "Daniel Bruhl? That Idiot!" within his earshot, thus ruining the seemingly large chances of spending the rest of the night with Daniel too. 0.0

On Monday I did my first German tutoring session, which wasn't as staccato as I had hoped. It's difficult when the student has no pre-existing vocab whatsoever, but I think we managed. She can now introduce herself, including place of birth and residence, describe her family and pets. (I am so tempted to bring in a CD with attractive pictures of the above next week, to check whether she's been learning her vocab.)

...Yes, yes, I'll hurry up with the Stiglitz/Hellstrom/Landa porn!fic you wanted, penumbra !

Inglorious Bastards fanfic (M, all 7 permutations of Landa/Stiglitz/Hellstrom)

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:24:35 GMT

This suggestion:
If only someone were to write a Hellstrom/Stiglitz/Landa fic, with dub-con, language kink, subset pairings thereof, blackmail and powerplay within mindfuck within spying games and triple agent-ness.
Received this reply:
I do believe the volume of my squee would break the space-time continuum... O____O THIS MUST BE WRITTEN, FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS UNHOLY.
and as I was at a loose end, instead of looking up German listening comprehension on the internet, I started writing fic.

0.0 Sorry penumbra, I did intend to be productive, but I just kept tripping over plot bunnies.
So how is this for an opening paragraph?

By all rights, Stiglitz and Landa should be their respective enemies' version of the childhood bogey-man: the ethereal figure that stalks the corridors of the mind, a vision that makes even the most decorated of warriors jerk upwards in bed, twisting within the prison of the sheets and drenching his shiver-wracked body in sweat. But the bogeyman does not invite his own monsters into his house, does not pull the demon closer for warmth in the night. He does not beg for the nightmare to invade his body and mark every inch with teeth and tongue and greedily swallow all prayers for mercy into his hot, gaping maw.

Maths! Run away!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:38:09 GMT

I just finished the first Partial Differential Equations assignment of the year. They weren't kidding when the lecturers admitted to rewriting the course so it was more challenging! The last question (for advanced students only, woe is me) made me rage quit. There are very few problems that make me quit out of brain meltdown, but this is one! Click for the loong question. Then feel better that your assignments aren't that hard.
...Right? (If not, you can always send me a solution!)

In better news, I am starting my new job as a German tutor today. (Yay!) Unfortunately all the assignment work has sucked up my time and attention like the siege of Tobruk, only less uncomfortable. So I have done no revision and will have to make it up as I go along. :(

Wolfenstein, in limericks

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:04:12 GMT

A series whose thematic retentions,
Of Nazis in occult dimensions,
Really got on my tits,
But Yahtzee rescued the shit,
With his witty limerick conventions.

Yes, it's Zero Punctuation reviewing a game occupying the simultaneous quantum states of "remake", "predecessor" and "expansion" of the classic Wolfenstein games. I have to admit that I've never played it, but I'll look at Unskippable before I download the demo. Having mentioned Unskippable as a result of the Halo Wars guest appearance, I must also say that it isn't nearly as amusing as ZP, but it does provide a moderately entertaining way of viewing cut scenes (especially as my computer hardware usually means I turn every graphics setting to "dim" or "pathetic".

Cake, Germans, uniforms...yum

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 08:06:40 GMT

Half of my hypothetical offspring's DNA had a "sorry for stealing your role" cake baked for him!

Actually, I lie: it was baked on September 8, so it's probably a memorial cake of some kind for Claus, Graf v. Stauffenberg. But it can be a quantum cake existing in several field states at once, right?

In less amusing, but related news, there is (finally!) some Immortal: ad vitam fanfic Alcide by qween-tartii and an interesting post on the trilogy upon which the film was based, but you probably don't want to read it if you've seen the film and want to concentrate on anything else all day. Or night.

Edit: Just when I thought he couldn't get any more impressive:
Annoying twat standing on box, vs. future husband standing on ground.
Would he not have made a brilliant aristocrat? (And then we would have seen him snogging Carice van Houten as well. *sniff*)

Mogadishu Wilkommen

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:36:54 GMT

The sum total of Thomas' screen time in Mogadishu Wilkommen has been placed on YouTube. Thank you, whoever did that, and appreciates how Thomas-starved us non-Germans are! There are no subtitles, but I can post a translation if you like (i.e. if your brain is not totally occupied by the sound of his voice ;-) ). There was an interview somewhere on the net in which Thomas said that the captain (whom he plays) was a forgotten hero in Germany. For once he isn't playing a villain!

Velvet Assassin

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:29:01 GMT

I loaded this game onto my computer just yesterday, only to find that in the 3 years since I had purchased my laptop, the hardware was obsolete! (For anyone that cares, I have an ATI graphics card and a 1.66Ghz CPU. Unfortunately the game requires PhysX, which was bought by Nvidia, who make other graphics cards. So, in a cut-throat but rather stupid move, they made all the new drivers incompatible with the ATI cards. So the rendering is shoved onto the pile of tasks run by the already overwhelmed CPU.) It transpires that I can play the game, but the keys aren't as responsive as I would like, and the graphics in the still screens have an annoying black and white interference band through the middle.

Anyway, the game. It's a WWII stealth/first-person shooter, involving a female British agent infiltrating German lines in 1944. The stealth mechanics are punishingly difficult: every enticing bit of cover conceals you from one guard while exposing you to the other two; if you so much as cough half the Leibstartande pop out from the nearest pot plant; they all have Schmeissers and you have either a pocket knife or a pistol with enough ammunition to worry half a scouting party. The only thing that keeps me from giving up is the AI: the Germans maintain a near-constant stream of chatter, drunken singing, or exposition designed to make you feel sorry from the RK whose throat you just slit and his son in the Hitlerjugend Div. It's all in German, but the stupid subtitles can't be turned off, unless I reinstall the game in German from scratch.

The other wonderful gimmick is morphine mode, an all too short period in which the guards freeze, rose petals fall from the sky and the British agent's clothes fall off.
No I'm not making that up! The first time the instructions came up, I thought I had to use the morphine on the guard, which resulted in many frustrating deaths before I realised that I had to use it on myself. I was highly confused as to why a die-hard British spy would want visions like that, but then it actually worked and I stopped caring. I don't know which developer has a fetish for prancing naked before a fully-armed SS infantryman in a secluded forest while the two of them are being showered with rose petals, but I wish I'd thought of it first.

Zero Punctuation reviewed this one too:

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 06:32:52 GMT

In some months I am expected to hold a 21st birthday party, with all the organisation, catering and general mayhem that entails.
My groups of friends form disjoint sets: the intellectual ones from uni, the party-mad ones that have somehow survived from my school days, the fandom group like stella8h8chang / misspotter and penumbra. There are very few interests which they share in common, and some of them are mutually odious, like WWII and Hetalia. As a result, if I want them to stay in the same room for more than an hour, I have to choose some kind of dull vanilla theme which will, if not satisfy everyone, at least keep them from throwing Molotov cocktails.

To add to the difficulty, I am receiving conflicting advice: my well-meaning godparents (I swear I have a fairy godmother, if you can imagine an angry one with a strong Canadian accent) suggested that I hold the kind of party which I would dream of attending, whereas my mother (who is well-meaning but an utter dictator at times) suggested that I hold the kind of party which my friends would like to attend. Lovely, except the two are not the same thing.

Worse, my mother, whom I suspect was a member of the German General Staff in a past lifetime, has started organising things! She is busy finding lists of music for a "science fiction" theme, which essentially means the entire Rocky Horror soundtrack and a few more sings that seems to indicate that she thinks horror and sf are the same thing. And why does my internet history include google searches for "laughing clown machines"? The only helpful thing she has done is investigate spaces which could be rented and dismissed all the nice ones as too expensive or too big.

I would like to hold a 1930s-era party, at which everyone dresses up, eats dinner, then has a good time either talking or making themselves dizzy on the dance floor to a bunch of LPs. Apparently there are major issues with this plan:
1. Very few people will own, or be able to borrow, a set of tails or black tie. I thought everyone's parents had some stuffed at the back of their wardrobe, but apparently I am woefully misguided snob.

I want the invitation to be white/black tie or dress uniform, with the intention that people who want to dress up have a certain degree of flexibility (extending to making up their own bizarre uniform with feathers sticking out of their helmets if they want), and those who don't will at least look smart. Black tie can't be that huge an ask, surely? (Then again, some of my uni friends think shaving is hard enough.)

2. Catering is enormously expensive, since I have to cough up, out of my own pocket, the costs for 20-30 people. I do have an option for free: my godparents offered to hire out Guillame's at Bennelong for the night. At this point my gastronomic side became more ecstatic than an SA stormtrooper at a shirtless Party rally, but my more sensible side ran off to hide in the wine cellar. I would love to do this, even if I had to pay myself, but I think it would utterly intimidate most of my friends. Plus, some of them aren't gastronomes, and while there are vegetarian options at Michelin star quality, the vegans will go hungry.

If I discard the restaurant option, I have two left: canapés or a sit-down dinner. The former is expensive but lets people mingle and try a variety of food, while the latter is cheaper but locks them into perhaps two choices of entrée, main and dessert. So which do I choose? Customs House has a really good idea: entrée canapés and sit-down mains with a choice of plated or canapé desserts, but it's expensive. I'd only really want to hire the balcony and pre-function space anyway, since the room itself is too big.

3. Let me be honest: I hate dancing. For some unfathomable reason, I abhor making an arse out of myself on a dance floor filled with people either falling over their stilettos or engaging in barely disguised homoerotic subtext. However, I am by far the exception, so I have The obvious problem with dragging out salsa music, ballroom dances and LPs of Strauss waltzes, is that very few people would know how to dance. As long as there are a few people who do know, I plan on us all having fun learning to dance. Last time I tried this it resulted in plenty of laughs and dizzyness. But apparently this is a bizarre idea which will not be fun at all.

4. There are some dedicated singers amongst my friends, so I thought playing a few cabaret songs typical of the era would be an excuse for them (and anyone else) to join in. The obvious problem is that I won't have an actual performer, just the sound. Will that put people off joining in the chorus? Or should I burn a DVD of a few film scenes to play in the background? Does anyone have suggestions?

So I need the advice of my f-list! Quite badly! If you received an invitation to a "21st Birthday of 1930s Madness" -
1. Would you go?
2. Would you comply with the dress code or not be arsed?
3. Would you dance? Even if you had to learn the moves and have a partner?
4. How would you want to be fed?

Help!

Military Alert Increase | More calendar photos

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 04:59:01 GMT

The least I can do with such an amusing document is propagate it around the web, but I admit to the LJ-cuts. There has been a worldwide reassessment of the threats posed by terrorists to the world's key military forces:

The British are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats in Islamabad and have raised their security level from "Miffed" to "Peeved." Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to "Irritated" or even "A Bit Cross." Brits have not been "A Bit Cross" since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from "Tiresome" to a "Bloody Nuisance." The last time the British issued a "Bloody Nuisance" warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

The French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from "Run" to "Hide". The only two higher levels in France are "Collaborate" and "Surrender." The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralysing the country's military capability.

It's not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert. Italy has increased the alert level from "Shout loudly and excitedly" to "Elaborate Military Posturing." Two more levels remain: "Ineffective Combat Operations" and "Change Sides."

The Germans also increased their alert state from "Disdainful Arrogance" to "Dress in Uniform and Sing Marching Songs." They also have two higher levels: "Invade a Neighbour" and "Lose".

Belgians, on the other hand, are all on holiday as usual, and the only threat they are worried about is NATO pulling out of Brussels.

The Spanish are all excited to see their new submarines ready to deploy; these beautifully designed subs have glass bottoms so the new Spanish navy can get a really good look at the old Spanish navy.

Americans meanwhile are carrying out pre-emptive strikes, on all of their allies, just in case.

New Zealand has also raised its security levels - from "baaa" to "BAAAA!" Due to continuing defence cutbacks (the air force being a squadron of spotty teenagers flying paper aeroplanes and the navy some toy boats in the Prime Minister's bath), New Zealand only has one more level of escalation, which is "Shit, I hope Australia will come and rescue us!"

Australia, meanwhile, has raised its security level from "No worries" to "She'll be right, mate." Three more escalation levels remain, "Crikey!", "I think we'll need to cancel the barbie this weekend" and "The barbie is cancelled, impound all the ducks." There has not been a situation yet that has warranted the use of the final escalation level.

Finally, I have another set of photos for the calendar, which I should probably put into f-list-only mode, but never mind. I did find another candidate, but I have no clue as to his identity. :(

Joachim "Jochen" Peiper

Click for larger images.
And I refer you to empressb's entry, where I'm surprised everyone has restrained themselves from discussion on the dimensions of his Peipes! (Sorry! *ducks rocks*)
She also found a wonderful book, which completely had my attention! (I'm so superficial.) Now, sadly, I can't find anything more on it.

Zero Punctuation

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 06:37:00 GMT

Ostensibly a review of EA's Medal of Honour: Airborne, but it's really an hysterical diatribe on modern WWII fiction of all kinds. Audio is not worksafe, but this is funny enough that it's only safe for work if you plan on asphyxiating on your own hilarity in front of your boss. The only thing that annoys me about Zero Punctuation is that the Flash isn't downloadable, so every time I want to watch a video more than once I chew up internet allowance.

From now on, all alternate history needs Hitler on a giant robotic spider!

I am an idiot!

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:54:14 GMT

At the moment I'm doing all the background theory for my research project
1. Get Friedmann equations from FLRW metric
2. Rewrite in terms of the critical density.
3. Put into MATLAB using pde45
4. Run trials using single fluid universes: all matter, photons, dark energy, cosmological constant, phantom energy.
5. Run a series of mixed fluid simulations with amounts of the above. (Deciding how much to put of each is the tricky bit.)
6. Write supernova simulation into program.
7. Run and compare with current supernova data.
8. Select new amounts of each type of 'stuff' and try again until I get something resembling the real universe.
9. Try to get published for the first time (squeeee!)
10. Get rejected for the first time.
11. Repeat steps 9-10 for some indeterminate length of time.

So, I do the difficult bit of actually finding the equations from the GR Field Equation of Doom. That's the one Einstein wrote in his 1915 paper and said that it was so difficult that an exact solution would not be found. In 1916 Erwin Schrödinger proved him wrong by finding a solution describing a black hole (which is also an excellent approximation for any spherical object), while in the trenches of the Western Front getting trenchfoot and dysentery and being shot. What a guy! (He died a month later.) Various solutions followed after the invention of the computer (cheats!).
Then I get to the simple bit in part 2: all I need to do is manipulate a few fractions. Yet I can't do it.

I went back to the paper from which I was working and discovered that I had put one too many dots in one of my equations.

...Confused

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:08:57 GMT

Why am I being sent staff e-mails from the university? So far it's nothing beyond petty bureaucracy, such as the one that demands staff take three days of annual leave over Christmas, thereby getting ten days off and saving x enormous number of KWh in power consumption, but still, this is undeniably odd.

They'll start paying me next. :-D

I can but dream: my current tutoring victim has come down with some sort of disease, so tutoring was cancelled on Sunday. I suspect the "disease' was "Workitis" caused by a very long e-mail I sent (and Bcc'd to his mother) about the quality of his essay writing, how it could be improved, references and a sample essay that scored an HD. I deserve a raise for this effort, yes? Not a snot-borne viral lurgy.

Now I know exactly how the author of this week's Tagesspaß (daily LULZ) feels:
And then I was eaten by a grue!

Yes, yes I will get around to writing more about the alternate history books. Last night I finished The Man with the Iron Heart and I can't sum my reaction up any better than skull_bearer's comment.

Fox on the Rhine/Fox at the Front

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:21:49 GMT

penumbra was kind enough to lend me her copies of the AH series by Michael Dobson and Douglas Niles. The good news is that they will be returned very quickly and that if I ever get my act together and write the entire Imperium trilogy, I am sure to be published. After all, people are paying money to buy this drivel, right? The bad news is that I actually had to read these self-indulgent works of American military tripe to understand this. There is a third bit of good news: neither book is quite as bad as Harry Turtledove's The Man with the Iron Heart, which takes the same faults present in this series and exponentially amplifies them. Yes, I suffered through hundreds of pages to find one bit of characterisation in Turtledove's Heydrich beyond blind obedience to a militarily, ethically and materially destroyed political regime. I gave up, having not found a scrap of logical character depth in any character whatsoever.

I posit that concentration on plot leads to an unavoidable weakening of the other two points of the writer's triumvirate: character and setting. To be precise: the common flaw in all these novels is the assumption that a good timeline and interesting point of divergence can alone hold up a novel; as a result the characters' actions are decided a priori of the logical sequence arising from their personalities, which leads to a paradoxical situation; the paradox is resolved by minimising any character depth in the antagonists which may lead to a timeline/moral contradiction; such weakening of character nullifies reader empathy, leaving the reader's mind free to note historical or contextual inaccuracies, which, while not glaringly obvious, are sufficient to destroy any lenience given to the author/s by the reader. In short, for want of a timeline, the authors lose a reader. It should be noted that I make no assumptions about whether this choice is deliberate: plot is the most crucial element of the triumvirate in all complex novels (cf. "Twilight" in which plot is subservient to character, namely self-insertion fantasy and "Harry Potter" in which plot and character are equally subordinate to setting, i.e. it is the magical world which makes the franchise successful over other series possessing an Homeric hero) and therefore must be given due attention. I merely argue that if the timeline is possible if and only if a character acts out-of-character, then the book will fall into the denigrating sequence I outlined.

The points of departure (PODs) in both Turtledove's Man with the Iron Heart (henceforth Man) and Niles and Dobson's Fox on the Rhine/Fox and the Front (henceforth Fuchs am Rhein) are "good": they both provide significant departures from our time line (OTL) with minimal initial alteration and appeal to something more than a niche market, i.e. are publishable. In Man the POD occurs when SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich survives the OTL assassination by British trained Czech partisans (qv. Heydrich: Henchman of Death for an explanation of this). The POD is minimal and plausible:

      "Then, perhaps with the instincts he’d picked up flying a 109 [a Messerschmidt 
      fighter plane] on the Eastern Front, Heydrich thought to check six [o'clock]. 
      When he looked behind him, he saw the other Czech who’d been hanging around 
      this corner sneaking up on the car."

Thus does Heydrich not only survive but consider the possibilities open to an SS-trained partisan group were the Axis to lose the war. Rather prescient of him, as it turns out, because his survival seems to have no other effect on the war whatsoever. (Dare I say that this is somewhat unlikely?) From June 1942 onwards he siphons material and men from the Eastern Front and trains them into a well co-ordinated network of sleeper cells. The novel resumes on VE Day, after the unconditional surrender of all German armed forces.
Fuchs am Rhein has an even more minor POD: "Brandt decided that the briefcase could remain where it was," allowing it to explode and kill Hitler. In OTL, the briefcase was moved behind a support pillar and caused perhaps the only well-documented, real-life case of the Clothing Damage trope. Fall Walküre is partly successful, until Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler usurps Bock's government. This is largely considered to be a likely outcome of a "successful" von Stauffenberg plot anyway. Thus far, both Man and Fuchs am Rhein have credibility in all sections of the triumvirate: the plot is plausible, the characterisation is historically accurate and the setting is consistent with OTL and accurately portrayed.

The evolution of their timelines is the crucial factor in both works: the final events cannot, it can be argued, be reached by setting initial conditions - the POD - and boundary conditions - the limits placed upon the action by the positions of each character - and letting the plot evolve naturally according to characterisation. It may be argued that this is a necessary condition for the books to be publishable: the ending must satisfy the target audience, therefore if the naturally evolving timeline causes an Axis victory (specifically the Germans over the Americans and Commonwealth) then there must be an intervention to prevent this and end up with a Reich defeated by the Americans. In Man an historically accurate Heydrich would not have made the tactical errors resulting in his death and in Fox on the Rhine, an historically accurate Rommel would not have been foiled by the blindsiding at Dinant which causes his capitulation. (Hence Fuchs am Rhein would be a single volume, given the strategic situation in Germany's favour against the Allies, as a Soviet victory over Germany does not fulfil the requirements for a publishable ending).

I'm being called to make dinner: more later. I am enjoying the books - just not in the way I think they were intended!

Imperium: Chapter I (ctd to end)

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:15:08 GMT

The bit after the debate. This is finished, unless all the German terms are too confusing. I don't have them in italics, as the HTML is annoying. Should I do so and replace the ß with ss, or is that understandable?
Comment!

CHURCHILL SAYS - BLAME ROMMEL!
The front-page headline of the Berliner Börsenzeitung was the last thing that should have been on Generalfeldmarschall Bodwin Keitel's mind as he walked through the warren of corridors and rooms in Wolfschanze. He'd picked up the paper for a bit of relaxation before working up the nerve to re-edit his latest report on Barbarossa, not to read about the latest triumph - albeit indirect - of Generalfeldmarschall-since-a-fortnight Erwin bloody Rommel. The fact that the British Prime Minister had used the leader of the Deutsches Afrikakorps as the scapegoat for the Allied losses in North Africa should have been a cause for celebration: it would have been, had the leader of the Axis army there actually been Erwin Rommel. Unfortunately for Keitel, Generalfeldmarschall Rommel answered to General Enrice Bastico, with whom he did not get along. In turn Bastico reported to Mussolini and the rest of the Generalo Supremo in Rome, with whom the Führer did not get along. Inevitably all of this diplomatic drivel passed under the nose of Keitel, mainly due to the fact that the only German in North Africa who out-ranked Rommel was in the Luftwaffe instead of the Heer. Superior or not, Keitel was not about to order the air force Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring to keep an eye on an army officer, as if that were even possible the way Rommel careened about his front lines!
"Bodwin, how are things?" sounded a slightly out-of-breath voice behind him.
The black-uniformed speaker half-walked, half-ran to catch Keitel at the elbow. Not only was his uniform unblemished and his boots polished to a painful gleam, the most irritating aspect of Heinrich Himmler was that the Reichsführer SS seemed in an excellent mood. Seemed, Keitel reminded himself, being the operative word in Himmler's case.
"I'm no better than yesterday. I hope you aren't as well as you look Heinrich," he replied sourly.
"And why would that be?" Himmler replied evenly.
"For a start your uniform doesn't look like it's been slept in, nor do you have the dark circles under your eyes the rest of us do."
"Implying either that I had a decent night's sleep instead of fretting over Barbarossa, or that unlike you I had no work to do at all?" his colleague fired in return.
"Knowing the Schutzstaffel, probably both," Keitel snapped.
"Not since that assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich. I still haven't found someone to replace him! But if I were you, I would be careful with those sour grapes of yours. The Führer is going to have a fit if you look that grumpy while bearing good news."
"That might be mildly entertaining. We haven't had any setbacks large enough to warrant a major outburst yet. But how do you know I am reporting good news? And don't give me any drivel about the Waffen-SS either!"
"No need! Guderian and von Kluge are yelling at each other loud enough to be heard in Berlin. Infantryman that he is, von Kluge thinks it's best to be conservative with the tank forces, instead of having them drive onwards at full speed while leaving the infantry to mop up resistance, so Guderian is having a fit over his inability to use Blitzkrieg tactics to their full potential. Of course all their squabbling is only possible because of the enormous success of the new Russian campaign. Guderian only agrees with his superiors when they are losing!"
Keitel snorted in amusement. "Not 'Hurricane Heinz' enough for him, eh?"
"Can you blame him? One minute the orders say 'go full steam ahead, the next he gets one labelled 'slow down' then when he disobeys, nine times out of ten he's praised for it!"
"Not criticising the Oberkommando Wehrmacht, are you?"
"I am one of the few people in the Wolf's Lair able to do so. Most of the other people are your dreary staff officers. I do wish the Heer would make up it's mind about strategy before shipping the troops out."
His voice lowered as they approached the end of the corridor, knocking off a Sieg Heil salute to the warriors on either side. Keitel eyed the pair with the inherent suspicion of the Schutz Staffel present in all members of the Wehrmacht. His clicked heels and salute were as precise as Himmler's, if not returned with the same enthusiasm. At least the interruption gave him time to select his words. Why did all these dammed SS officers swan around thinking they were the best thing since Clausewitz? Most of them had never set foot inside a war academy! Time to recall his lecture notes...
"Modern warfare is a very fluid situation. In the last war, Schlieffen could plot out the trench locations months in advance, but with the increase in motorised divisions the uncertainty in timing becomes far greater. Sudden changes in a minor engagement can tip the scales for the entire sector if the commander's nerves are shot."
"Or the opposite may happen and the Panzer commanders get carried away with their success," Himmler supplied, his dark eyes sparking to life.
"Don't remind me!"
"About Guderian's sudden forward lunge, or Rommel's?"
"Wonderful, isn't it?" barked the solitary figure at the table, fixing his gaze on the pair as they entered.
Keitel could almost feel scorch marks developing on his uniform as he busied himself with finding a section of table unoccupied by glasses and china.
"The Eighth Army are in retreat before the battle even begins, the way Rommel's reputation is spreading!" Hitler continued.
"I take it, mein Führer, that you don't mean to send him any more divisions in that case?" supplied Himmler, whom, Keitel noted with some relief, had taken a seat on the opposite side of the dining table.
"I certainly don't plan to send him Guderian's!"
"Why not?" countered someone from behind Keitel. "Kill two birds with one stone by removing him from Russia and sending the Panzer general where he can speed onward to his heart's content."
"What, reward him for being argumentative towards his superiors? You've been on the morphia again!" snapped Keitel derisively at the figure now eclipsing his view of the Führer.
"Call being stuck in a desolate wilderness rewarding Keitel? What have you done in war except sit behind a desk?" parried the Luftwaffe chief.
Unfortunately his argument was ruined by his new-found weight gain, which strongly suggested that for all his exploits in the Great War, all Hermann Göring had done in the current one had involved sitting behind a desk.
"Enough! I thought my Generalfeldmarschall might have put aside his rivalry by now, instead of behaving like a spoiled schoolboy. And stop smiling Göring! I thought my Reichsmarschall might have put aside the needle by now as well, but evidently I have overestimated both of you," the Führer snapped.
The pair were prevented from further confrontation by the arrival of the rest of the inner circle. Großadmiral Raeder sat as far from Göring as possible, noted Keitel; Party leader Martin Bormann ostentatiously perched between Himmler and the Führer; Jodl was on Himmler's other side and Generaloberst Halder nabbed the last seat puffing more than a locomotive.
"What happened to you?" remarked Raeder, his lips twitching slightly in amusement.
"A last-minute telegram from Star Oskol. 4 Panzer Army and 6 Army have completed the first encirclement of the Red Army there. Resistance is collapsing and General Hoth wants permission to advance to the Don."
"Operation Blue is moving successfully then. Beyond even my expectations!" Hitler exclaimed. "Return telegram: Hoth may advance in conjunction with the infantry of 6 Army. He is to move down the Don forming a pincer with 6 Army to the west and 1 Panzer Army to the south. The ultimate objective will be for Army Group B to sweep down from the north and coincide with Army Group A moving into the Caucasus."
"So the overall strategy is to pincer the remaining Red Army forces west of the Don, then continue with Plan Orient?" asked Keitel, ignoring the stenographer frantically scrawling the shorthand transcript behind him.
"If the Red Army tries to retreat west they will run into our Panzers and the river. If they try moving south they will be caught between the two army groups. Moving east will only drive them further into our lines where 2 Hungarian Army and 8 Italian Army are in reserve. Northern movement will run them into 2 Army at Kursk," confirmed Hitler.
"The northern side of the encirclement is only held by 2 Army," remarked Jodl.
"Only a third of Army Group B," remarked Bormann dryly.
Keitel examined the map again. 2 Army was garrisoned at Kursk, which formed a near-equilateral triangle with Star Oskol to the south-east and to the east-
"Voronezh," he murmured.
"What?" asked Himmler.
"Here, Voronezh, just on the other side of the Don," Keitel replied. "The only logical place for the Red Army to move their fleeing troops is across the river, yet with two Army Groups advancing against them they will be forced against it and slowed down while it is crossed. The weakest point of our grip is the point where our lines are closest to the river, that is, where they can get to their escape route fastest. Here," he traced the triangle on the map, "in the north where the encirclement is weakest."
"Ah, I see," said Himmler.
He pointed at Kursk and Star Oskol.
"Two of the three towns of any consequence in the north of the corridor are held by Army Group B, so the only logical place for the Red Army to move their fleeing troops is Voronezh."
"Which is precisely why 2 Army is there to stop them," said Hitler.
Keitel took up the argument again, forcing a careful neutrality into his tone.
"But mein Führer, Herr General Jodl made a valid observation. 2 Army is an infantry army, positioned roughly 150km from the river. They will not be able to cut off the Reds as quickly or as efficiently as a Panzer Army."
"Which could cross the river and take the town before the Red Army even got there," commented Halder.
"Very well. New message to Hoth: He is to forge the river and occupy Voronezh with part of his force and bring 2 Army behind in order to mop up resistance and firm up the northern line. When that is done he will swing that prong down the Don to meet up with the remainder of his army."

"What of the Mediterranean strategy?" asked Raeder.
The OKM chief had been pushing a strategy that would use his fledgling navy to maximum effect since the collapse of Operation Sealion. With the possibility of an invasion of Britain scrapped (in no small part by Göring's rivalry), Raeder had wanted to align German strategy with the aims of their Italian allies: an attack on Russia via Africa and the Caucasus instead of an eastern thrust from Poland, thereby removing the British presence in the Middle East and gaining a reliable oil supply before breaking the Ribbentrop-Molotov treaty. Il Duce would begin his Imperium Romanum with the conquest of North Africa and the Führer would begin his long obsessed-over conquest of Russia while his Western Front remained secure. In theory the Mediterranean would then be more aptly titled by the Roman name: mare nostrum, Our Sea. In practice...
"Generalfeldmarschall Kesselring and General von Waldau think that Rommel is being too reckless," remarked Halder carefully.
As reckless and insane as Rommel was, it would do Halder no good to criticize the Führer's favourite commander too openly. God knows, thought Keitel, he was near enough to being sacked as it was.
"So he is! It is simply impossible to move an entire air base at the rate Rommel has been conquering territory. As soon as the squadrons get within a reasonable distance of the front line so they don't waste most of the fuel getting to the fight, the front moves another hundred kilometres east again!" snapped Göring.
"What about the situation in the Mediterranean itself?" asked Raeder. "Securing supply routes, neutralising the British Navy, Operation Hercules?"
"Hercules has been delayed until Rommel takes Alexandria," announced Hitler.
"But Rommel has been screaming for Malta's neutralisation since Crusader," said Halder. "We haven't heard the end of his complaints: Malta blocks the supply routes, Malta prevents us from control of the Med, Malta is the reason the RAF is winning the battle for air superiority, Malta is why he has arrived at the last defensive position before Cairo with twelve functioning tanks!"
"Thank you Generaloberst, I hear enough of that from Rommel, I don't need it from my Stabschef as well!" Keitel interrupted tartly.
The head of OKW did not want to have to cope with a reshuffled General Staff, not so close to the victory in Russia. If Hitler sacked the Chief of Staff, Keitel would have one less ally - his most important one at that - in convincing the Führer of the secondary nature of the African theatre. OKW could not afford any redistribution of force away from the Russian theatre into the African one, the province of OKH.
"Then where are the forces assigned to Operation Hercules?" asked Göring. "There are two veteran parachute regiments in the orders of battle."
"I doubt there will be any airborne landings in Russia soon," was Himmler's dry quip.
Göring's return glare bounced off him like paper darts off armour.
"I have given them to Generalfeldmarschall Rommel in order to boost his numbers for the final push towards Cairo."
Keitel quietly prayed that Halder would shut up for once. Mercifully the only outburst was from Raeder.
"Surely if you are going to give Rommel anything it should be naval-based! Supply convoy protection is the most important element of a desert war. The one factor in naval warfare that Hercules was supposed to ensure is the ongoing and certain arrival of supplies at Axis ports. More men at the front is more strain on an army that is already living off captured rations and using British trucks. Hercules must go ahead before Rommel's attack. After Alexandria has fallen will be too late."
"Why then did we not take Malta during Operation Crusader, the only time when Rommel was being forced to retreat?" asked Jodl.
"Because that shortened his supply lines and lengthened the Allied ones. Retreat is a good thing from a staff officer's point of view," said Halder. "Think of the supply lines as a piece of elastic. There are a few alterations one can make to the properties of the elastic, but essentially the elastic stretches from the nearest safe base of supply to the front. The ease with which supplies get to the troops corresponds to the tension in the elastic: when Crusader occurred, Rommel was shortening his elastic, so the tension decreased. At the same time the enemy supply lines were lengthening and supplying their front line became much harder, in the same way that stretching elastic a second metre is far more difficult than the first."
"Supply is exactly why Rommel was able to be sent to Africa in the first place," the Führer interjected. "The British supply lines, even with a tiny army of two and a half divisions, simply couldn't stretch further than Cairo to Benghazi. No matter that the British had just turned ten Italian divisions into prisoners of war, Rommel beat them back 500 miles with a single division. It is impossible for the Allies to conquer all of North Africa while even the smallest army has the will to oppose them!"
"So they would have to launch a two pronged attack at each end of North Africa to have any chance, even with the dominance of the Royal Navy and Air Force in the Med, yet they cannot do that without full commitment from America," mused Himmler. "The bickering between de Gaulle, Churchill and Stalin is tying their generals' hands in ways we can't even dream of attempting!"
General laughter followed this remark. As Reichsführer des Schutzstaffel, Himmler was in direct command of a triumvirate with the potential to replace the Wehrmacht's land army, military police and intelligence service. In particular the Sicherheitsdienst had become bitter rivals with Admiral Wilhelm Canaris' military intelligence service, the Abwehr. The competition was paying off, with increased efficiency from both services, yet Keitel wondered uneasily what else Himmler had done to make Canaris fall from favour. Soldiers of the Wehrmacht had control of SS members only during battle: outside of the line they could only be disciplined by higher SS ranks, or reported by a Wehrmacht officer to Himmler. In Canaris' opinion, they were a private army of the likes of Marius', Sulla's and Caesar's, which had brought Europe's last thousand-year empire so close to ruin. Ostensibly there was no chance of that happening again: the Schtuzstaffel was loyal only to the Reich and the Führer. Keitel wondered if Canaris had been foolish enough to tell anyone the logical continuation of that thought: loyal only to the Reich and the Führer, as long as their precious "Reichsheini" told them to be.
"Herr Generalfeldmarschall Keitel? The supply report for Africa please?" asked the Führer. "Unless, of course, all our discussion of Rommel's accomplishments is boring you?" he added sharply.
"Ah, no mein Führer. The gross demands from the African theatre are 180 000 tons per month, of which 60 000 goes to the Panzerarmee Afrika and 120 000 is issued to Italian combatants in Tripoli, Italian civilians and so on. Net demands from Rommel are that 60 000 tons of supplies are earmaked for the Panzerarmee regardless of the deficiency this causes to the Italians, which has made Mussolini furious and achieved exactly no increase in his supplies. This last point is fairly inconsequential when one takes into account the actual gross supply to Africa, which has a mean monthly rate of 30 000 tons."
He continued in this vein for some time, noting with grim satisfaction the way that those ersatz-commanders' eyes' began glazing over at the analysis of a real, staff-trained officer of the Oberkommando Wehrmacht. For all their bravado and glittering uniforms, the SS were soldiers as much as the next civilian. They could shoot, they could fight, the officers could plot a decent situation map but they were utterly incapable of strategy. The precise global picture of warfare over an entire theatre of war, that was purely the province of the General Staff. This theatre in particular had needed a severe overhaul since 1941.
"How is Generalleutnant Gause getting on managing the Panzerarmee Afrika logistics?" asked Raeder. "It doesn't seem as if he has done a thing: they are still in the phenomenal mess they were a year ago. Worse!"
"Oh he did something all right," burst out Halder. "Herr Generalleutnant Gause trotted down to Tripoli with his entire staff and read Rommel the riot act, as ordered. He set up a system to rectify the situation so the army wouldn't perform its usual trick of bringing a string of rapid and tactically brilliant victories to a grinding halt due to supply issues, as ordered. Then he allowed the inferior officer some time in which to explain his actions, at the end of which it seemed the impossible had finally been achieved: Rommel managed to produce an intelligent and dynamic understanding of the situation as it was viewed by his superior officer. Then, if you please, said superior immediately subordinated his entire chain of command to Generalmajor Rommel!”
“Given the – how was that so delightfully phrased, Halder? – “dynamic understanding” between Gause and Rommel, it would appear that the only cause for concern is your precious staff officer deciding that perhaps he ought to listen to the men at the front in desert warfare,” Himmler almost spat. “You may have won us France in 1940, but don't forget: the General Staff lost it in 1918 too!”
“Asphalt soldier,” Keitel murmured under his breath.
“Have you actually met Rommel, Herr Generaloberst?” Göring asked.
“Neither have you!” the OKW Chief of Staff parried.
“That explains why I am not the one making arch remarks behind his back!”
“I don't have to have met him! Unlike you, I read what arrives on my desk.”
“And how long before any line officer would need to reach for a dictionary to understand it? Don't you understand, you uniformed office boy? This isn't about you and your little spat with Herr Generalfeldmarschall Rommel, this is greater than that! There is as much rivalry between line and staff officers in the Heer as there is between the Wehrmacht and the SS. Why do you think none of the OKW personnel are Reichsmarschall, eh? Because the minute unser Führer handed you the rank bars, the line officers would hand you a hand grenade!”
“You mean you would,” snickered Raeder. “It would take something that size to blow you up, you pig.”
The Reichsmarschall plunged on, undaunted.
“Don't you see how this division is costing us the war? Oberkommando Heer in charge in the West, Oberkommando Wehrmacht in the East, Oberkommando Luftwaffe in the South – and why in God's name is an air marshal overseeing a Panzer general? – this is not Einheit, this is not the co-ordination that let us win in France!”
“Your air marshal Kesselring is overseeing the African theatre because Rommel is always running about with his tanks and wouldn't know about the strategic situation if it fell on him!” Keitel exploded.
Lieber Gott im Himmel, he was at the end of his tether with these idiots! This was not some Communist council meeting, with all der Ivan's figureheads howling at each other, this was not a session of the Weimar puppet Reichstag, this was Wolfschanze, the headquarters for the greatest strategist the modern world had ever seen. And he had better stay that way, for all their sakes. Germany would not be emasculated if they lost again, no, it would be disembowelled, the quivering flesh scraped from its bones and fed to the vulturous neighbours until there was nothing but death and ashes and decay. How could the finest military men in the Reich, men of adamant when they had been subdued by Versailles, be reduced to squabbling ingrates when they were winning? He tuned out the argument. They almost deserved to lose.
“Meine Herren.”
It was quiet, that gas damaged voice. No matter: it sliced through the yells like an 8,8cm anti-aircraft gun through a tank. The volume was irrelevant when there was no other voice so instantly recognisable. The warm burr of the Austrian accent moved these men like no formal Prussian could have.
They were silent.
The inner circle politely waited for their Führer to continue.
“His men” indeed.

Imperium: Chapter I (partial)

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:01:05 GMT

This is missing the debate in the House of Commons, as I wanted to post what I have written and get some criticism before I launch into another debate. There will be a lot of political manoeuvring, so I need to know whether the German character interaction in particular is believable.

One
The Fox and the Lion

The river, the buildings still pockmarked by bomb damage, the sky weighed down by endless cloud formations, the very light and air in London had atrophied into a world of grey. The morning light leaked into a large room overlooking the Thames, illuminating the overcrowded oak desk, the empty chair thrust away from it, a certain well-worn stretch of carpet amongst the even civil service green. The sole figure in the office scowled at the carpet - or lack thereof - in lieu of scowling at the reason for its threadbare state. Last night may very well have been the last he would ever spend pacing it. Certainly it would make the secretaries happy, no longer subjected to his cri de coeur. Labour would be overjoyed, yet he had festering suspicious that most of the Tory backbenchers would be equally happy. His own party apparently devoid of patriotism and sense! It might not be his own party by tomorrow. The figure shook his head, forcing himself not to tread the same floorboards he had worn down for the past months, staying so late in his preoccupations that his wife had been more anxious on the nights he did return home than when he stayed trapped in the policies of the last day. Yet he would not trade his life for any other. He would return. He must be returned to office as surely as Hitler must remain in power in Germany! Whether he returned tonight or when the Army of the Nile streamed out of the gates of Cairo mattered not. Had he not done more than any of his civilian countrymen, or indeed any non-enlisted man in the Empire? He had been First Lord of the Admiralty, then Prime Minister, then shouldered the burden of the defence portfolio as well. When had he last failed to send telegrams to the commanders of the MEF daily, to learn of every new danger, to offer advice, to burn away the chaff of an army still in the 1914 mindset of static trench warfare and infantry attacks? Nor had he neglected the fragile daughter countries of the Commonwealth, the cinders of an imperial fire that had once burned in the hearts of all His Majesty's subjects. India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand had all united their governments and people in support of the war, yet Great Britain was incapable of uniting her own! He stared gloomily at the broad flow of silver amongst the pallid city grey. He would do exactly the same this evening: look upon the banks of the Thames and watch the life of the city, still proud after the fall of France, the Blitz and the crumbling of the Empire. Then he would pace the evening away, exactly the same as any other evening, crying "Rommel, Rommel, Rommel! What else matters but beating him?"

John Wardlaw-Milne had never seen the House so packed. Had it not been for the designer's fortuitous insistence on having everything non-wooden painted green (apart from the floorboards, but they were carpeted in green), he might have sworn himself to be in the Lords.
"John! John, come here!" yelled one of his colleagues, waving his papers frantically in the air and quite heedless of their collision with the surrounding backbenchers' heads.
On second thoughts... He sighed and waded his way through the crowds.
"I hope you know what you are doing," his colleague remarked bluntly.
"Need you ask, Anurin? I'm not Niccolo Machiavelli! I tabelled the motion because I believe the Armed Forces of this country and their representative in Parliament are going to the dogs."
"Humph. You're wrong on that point: the armed forces are going to the Jerry POW camps. If only the Defence Minister would suffer the same fate," he snapped.
Wardlaw-Milne suppressed a smile. Wearing his trademark pinstripe and scowl, Aneurin Bevan was undeniably the member most despised by the Speaker of the House. He was almost as fiery in normal conversation, which made him an unlikely companion for the likes of Sir John Wardlaw-Milne, Lord Winterton and Admiral Keyes. Yet the observant backbencher might have noticed their collusion in the past few days, united in a disgust for the Government's meddling in the military sphere. Great Britain didn't appoint soldiers to run Her Majesty's government, so why did the government - or a certain minister - appoint himself to run the British Expeditionary Forces? Mad!

“All rise!”

The debate goes here.

Determined to prove a villain

Flats in Berlin

Til Schweiger, Thomas Kretschmann and Matthias Schweighöfer all in the same film?

I never thought English could be amusing; Inglorious Bastards parody

*gulp*

Fic rec: Heydrich 100 words. Prompt: cheat.

Day of WIN

Fic rec: Inglorious Basterds; RL stress

Thomas Kretschmann dragged naked from bed by SS men.

More Phobs' fanart!

Inglorious Bastards fanfic (M, all 7 permutations of Landa/Stiglitz/Hellstrom)

Inglorious Bastards fanfic (M, all 7 permutations of Landa/Stiglitz/Hellstrom)

Maths! Run away!

Wolfenstein, in limericks

Cake, Germans, uniforms...yum

Mogadishu Wilkommen

Velvet Assassin

Military Alert Increase | More calendar photos

Zero Punctuation

I am an idiot!

...Confused

Fox on the Rhine/Fox at the Front

Imperium: Chapter I (ctd to end)

Imperium: Chapter I (partial)

gulp