The Stasi
Waldemar had never dreamed that his brother harbored such well-meaning designs upon his future. Even if he had known, there was nothing he could have done about it at present.
He sat in his office at Wilhelmshaven, putting his thoughts in order. With the stamp business having settled into a stable phase, he was collecting profits with scarcely any effort and forwarding them to the navy. Actually attending to the business, however, presented certain difficulties. Wandering too far from his post while on active service was hardly the way to earn his fellow officers' good opinion, and these practical constraints left him spending a great deal of time sitting idle in that Wilhelmshaven office.
Time is money, honestly. Throwing it away like this is absurd.
After mulling it over, Waldemar decided to pursue a venture he had long wanted to start.
"Mr. Connor, I'd like to establish a private intelligence agency for our future business. What do you think?"
"An intelligence agency? Isn't that rather ambitious?"
John Connor was considerably taken aback by the proposal. He knew better than anyone that Waldemar was a wealthy man, but an intelligence agency was the sort of apparatus a nation might operate — not an organization a private individual could run.
"It doesn't need to be enormous from the start. A news agency that collects information would be quite sufficient."
Only then did John Connor grasp Waldemar's intent. In other words, not a genuine intelligence service — merely the framework of one. That much, Waldemar's resources could certainly support.
"Even so, Your Highness, this is a business. If a venture has no profitability, it has no value as an investment."
"There will be value, of course."
Waldemar knew how to extract information from a mountain of refuse.
"Information can be endowed with enormous value, depending on how one processes it."
That information could even become important enough to bring down a nation. Waldemar pressed his case with arguments of his own and persuaded John Connor. In the end, unable to prevail against the man who held the purse strings, Connor began preparing to establish the intelligence agency.
Waldemar named the new organization the Stasi.
A private civilian intelligence agency, disguised as a news and telecommunications service, founded to gather global economic, political, and military intelligence.
The name was borrowed from the notorious intelligence service of East Germany — an agency that, in the world of Waldemar's previous life, had left a dark stain across the Eastern Bloc.
In founding the agency, Waldemar instructed that its members be carefully selected from among those employees of Euro Bond — his vast resource conglomerate — who had demonstrated particularly strong loyalty. Those selected would receive enormous compensation from the Stasi, in exchange for undergoing ideological training that Waldemar had prepared.
This ideological training was, of course—
Krupp-style Socialism. What else?
The patriarchal German industrialists of this era, as a rule, took responsibility for their employees — and in return demanded absolute obedience.
The foremost representative of such companies was the famous Krupp. The firm was notorious for an oppressive attitude that, in exchange for taking complete responsibility for an employee's livelihood, required permission even to piss.
Waldemar intended to demand Krupp-level obedience from the Stasi as well. Thus the ideological model within the agency could only be a patriarchal system of corporate welfare.
Of course, this patriarchal Krupp model was a far cry from the Nazis' National Socialism, which was built on a foundation of racialism. The model's goal, from the outset, was not discrimination but the control of labor. Waldemar was aiming for precisely the same advantage Krupp had enjoyed.
"I can't say that sounds particularly appealing."
John Connor, being British, displayed considerable distaste for this totalitarian model.
"It's not a good model, of course."
Waldemar did not dispute Connor's view.
"But if we are to run the Stasi, this is the model we must use."
"Why do you think so?"
Waldemar pointed to the German Imperial flag fluttering in the distance.
"Nation, ethnicity, and ideology. The world ahead of us will be an age in which even money cannot easily buy loyalty. The great revolutions of 1848 were a fine example. If such a moment comes, what will guarantee the loyalty of our company's employees? Will sharing a nationality be of any help?"
Waldemar shook his head.
"If nationalism rises, the interests of Germany as a nation will overwhelm my own. The state will then take the sacrifice of an individual like myself as a given, and demand devotion. I do not wish to see such nationalists inside the Stasi. And ethnicity?"
"I do not fully trust a collective of Germans who are my compatriots only in the abstract. I do not believe they will keep faith with me merely because they happen to have been grouped under the category of 'German.' That is why I have no intention of tolerating Germanic nationalists within the Stasi."
"Ideology is no different. I have no wish to hear, inside the Stasi, either the socialists who want fair distribution or the democrats who demand equality."
"Why? Because I, Waldemar, am essentially a member of the privileged class that has seized this society's resources and wealth. That is why I want the Stasi to be a controlled space in which their voices are absent. Only then can I trust them and put them to use."
In Waldemar's words, John Connor sensed a wariness. That wariness was not necessarily misplaced. One needed only look at how many of the ruling class, since the dawn of the modern age, had lost their heads overnight.
Connor could not help but ask.
"Then, Your Highness, do you wish to create serfs of a new age in order to protect your own rights?"
"There's no need to put it so dramatically. I merely want the means to protect myself. And consider this: if you were a pauper in England, would you rather become my well-treated serf, or remain on the street, enjoying your freedom until they drag you off to the workhouse?"
John Connor had no answer to that. Waldemar looked at him and spoke as if counseling a man who had thought too far ahead of himself.
"Mr. Connor, you needn't think too deeply about it. The Stasi's employees will all be volunteers. Even in a democratic society, no one takes responsibility for the work a person has chosen for himself, do they?"
It was a long moment before John Connor nodded.
"Very well. I will not oppose Your Highness's wishes. But you must keep your promise that the Stasi will be staffed by volunteers alone."
"Of course."
That was a problem that could be solved by the scale of the compensation offered to volunteers. With John Connor's cooperation, Waldemar swiftly assembled the basic framework of the Stasi. In certain respects, a financier who dealt in information and an intelligence agency had something in common.
While the agency's framework was being assembled, Waldemar devoted his energy to compiling an ideological textbook to be provided to the carefully selected Stasi employees. The first volume was prepared in a remarkably short time. Waldemar presented the Stasi with a patriarchal welfare model based on the real-world Krupp — though the welfare and compensation he offered them, of course, surpassed even Krupp's.
In exchange for absolute obedience to the organization and to Waldemar of Prussia personally, every Stasi employee shall be provided with food, clothing, and shelter, as well as their children's education, medical care, leisure, and a pension — from the cradle to the grave.
The price of this provision is loyalty. Nothing less than absolute obedience shall be accepted.
By the standards of the age, Germany's labor protections were reasonably decent — but no one could compare them to Waldemar's compensation. Naturally, he demanded a commensurate price for such generosity. That price was loyalty. Waldemar demanded absolute obedience from the Stasi, and in the course of their training, employees were taught to cultivate obedience to the organization — and, beyond that, to Waldemar personally.
Of course, teaching nothing but obedience to people being trained as intelligence operatives would have been absurd. Waldemar solved this problem quite simply.
"There's Pinkerton in America, isn't there? Let's bring some of their people over and use them as instructors."
Waldemar decided to bring over Pinkerton men from America to serve as instructors. When Pinkerton first received Waldemar's inquiry through Rockefeller, they looked thoroughly bewildered at the Germans' proposal.
"They'll pay us a fortune in training fees just to send our agents over and teach their people? What on earth are these people thinking?"
If they needed detectives, they could simply hire them. Why go to the trouble of training their own? It didn't make much sense, but Pinkerton had no reason to refuse. In a recession like this, they were fortunate to receive such an offer at all.
Pinkerton selected their ten finest detectives and sent them to Germany. In return, the Germans agreed to pay a service fee of ten dollars per detective per day — forty-two marks in German currency. Considering that the average American worker's wage at the time was about a dollar a day, it was an extraordinary rate.
"Nearly twice our going rate. These fellows have money to burn."
Faced with such enormous pay, the detectives promptly forgot any complaints about having to cross the Atlantic. The moment they arrived in Germany, the Pinkerton agents were taken to a suspicious-looking cold-storage warehouse labeled Stasi News Agency, where they met the people they were to train.
"These fellows are just civilians, aren't they?"
The detectives needed only a glance to see that the Germans they were supposed to train were ordinary civilians. Detective training for people like this? Well, they were being paid, so they could teach them — but it was going to be a long road. Not that they intended to complain. They'd taken the money; they had to earn their keep.
From that day, the Pinkerton agents launched into a punishing regimen of twelve hours or more.
"We've hammered observation into your skulls until your ears rang. And you still can't tell people apart? Where do you get the nerve to collect this kind of pay with a pair of eyes that worthless?"
The detectives harangued their charges mercilessly, just as they themselves had been taught in their apprenticeships. Waldemar watched the Pinkerton men's training methods and nodded.
A bit crude, but there's a system to it. Being a major organization, they're a cut above the usual rabble.
In less than a week after the Pinkerton men arrived, the Stasi had begun to take on something resembling the shape of an organization. The Stasi people, of course, had yet to shed their civilian skins. Waldemar occasionally observed the agents' training and sat in on the ideological work as well, and having watched the Stasi's growth for a time, he felt the organization was beginning to find its footing.
All that's left now is to wait.
Waldemar intended to give the Stasi all the time it needed to grow. Five years. Ten years. Longer, even, if necessary. There was, after all, ample time remaining until the fateful hour he was aiming for.
Waldemar slipped his pocket watch into his coat and turned away.