Vignette: The Legend of the Lunar Fortress
By Duncan Clacher.
On the Sea Lion Press Forums, we run a monthly Vignette Challenge. Contributors are invited to write short stories on a specific theme (changed monthly).
The theme for the 95th contest was The Moon.
It's the legend that just refuses to die.
Project Gimle
The Final Redoubt
Mondfestung
The Lunar Fortress
Or, in less poetic terms, the Nazi moon base.
Now, obviously the Nazis had plenty of moon bases. When it came to Lebensraum the world simply was not enough and while their dreams of lunar cities populated by pure Aryan moonmen never quite came to fruition, they managed to get a fair bit of infrastructure up there before the Third Reich collapsed in on itself. Quite a few are still operating today, sold off to the various space powers by the new German government for much needed cash. The ones left abandoned...well they'll make for some very interesting archaeology some day.
But we are not talking about those Nazi moon bases, obviously. We are talking about the Nazi moon base. The Big One.
The first hints and whispers started coming through even before the first moon landing. A vast, self-sufficient complex to be constructed beneath the surface on the dark side of the moon. A permanent staff of loyal and racially impeccable astronauts (both sexes to be represented). Hydroponic gardens and manufacturing plants. A safe refuge beyond the reach of any earthly missile.
The thinking behind it, in some ways, seemed quite simple. While the German scientific elite had eventually gotten over its repulsion of "Jewish Physics", they would always struggle to close the nuclear gap with the USA and no amount of massed conventional rocketry could make up for that deficit. This was the German insurance policy against the day that the Cold War went hot. Whilst missiles flew back and forth, rocket ships would carry the upper echelons of their leadership to safety in the lunar fortress. Even if the Earth burned in nuclear fire, the best of National Socialism would survive beyond the atmosphere. When the embers had cooled, they would return to reclaim a world cleansed of any enemies. A final and perfect solution to Mutually Assured Destruction.
Yes, it sounds outlandish and impractical. But the Nazis always loved projects of that sort and had shown they were prepared to throw the necessary resources at them if enthusiasm was high enough. Germany was way ahead of everyone in the Space Race. Maybe they could and would do such a thing? The years passed, inquiries were made. The idea got out into the public eye. Führer Bormann flat out denied the idea, which naturally raised suspicions. Hofer, his successor, liked to tease at the concept now and again but never went so far as to admit anything concrete in public.
Eventually the documentation started leaking through from sources inside the Ministry of Rocketry. Blueprints, schematics, feasibility reports and the like. At first a trickle, then a reliable stream as the years went by and we got better. Their authenticity checked out right along the board and the science and engineering was sound. Plenty of German rockets headed in that direction over the years. Like I said, they were building moon bases and a lot of the top men in the German programme were pretty damn serious about permanent settlements. Maybe they were actually going to do it. Maybe they already had and we’d missed it. Either way, could we afford not to know for sure?
We spent decades looking for the damn thing. Spy satellites under the cover of lunar survey missions, top level infiltrations within the Ministry of Rocketry, we even tried to get men on the inside of one of the known moonbases to figure out if they were just covers for the fortress (was never able to flip one of those German astronauts though...). We commissioned studies on how to build our own lunar fortress, but those at the top weren't quite so mad as to throw good money after a very expensive and unlikely contingency.
How do I know all this? Well, I can't say exactly what organisation I was working for over those years but suffice to say it was one with a vested interest in keeping eyes on German activity in space. I had studied engineering a little before being recruited and thus found myself on some of the first teams assigned to investigating the Lunar Fortress. I did a good enough job to be put on the next team and then the one after that and so on. Eventually, lunar affairs were simply my area of expertise. I like to think we did good work and helped fight the good fight in our own way.
We never found the fortress of course.
When the dust had settled in Europe and the new German government was welcoming the rest of world to Berlin, we finally got full access to government records and the truth behind it all came out. Oh, no doubt it was a seriously proposed plan at some stage but by the whims and caprice of the party elite had soon been discarded. Then, somehow, an aging Goebbels came across it and was struck by the worst sort of inspiration. The legend of the lunar fortress was to be the last great achievement of Goebbels' twilight years. A grand propaganda exercise for the Nuclear Era and the Space Age. An astronomically Big Lie that I and others like me had spent years of our lives obsessing over. A whole secret department of the Ministry of Propaganda dedicated to churning out the oh so authentic looking documentation that kept us wasting resources on literal moonshots and made our superiors just that little more hesitant about pushing the nuclear button.
This was, needless to say, a rather bitter pill to swallow just as I prepared to retire. But even in the face of undeniable proof of its falsehood, the legend refused to die.
Despite the stereotypes about people my age, I've always been good with computers. Terrifyingly wonderful thing, the world wide web. I spend a fair bit of time on it these days one way or another and more than I care to admit is spent on some less than reputable forums. Forums where men (it's mostly men), many of questionable sanity and/or politics dedicate their time to unravelling the conspiracy of the lunar fortress. There's a lot of true believers out there, often sharing scans documents and maps that I handled first hand back in the day. Highlighting and "enhancing" and "reading between the lines". They are still utterly convinced it's all true. That the Nazis were just pulling a double bluff. Just because they said they didn't do it doesn't mean that they didn't! Who could argue with such logic?
I try now and again, break down arguments, untwist facts. I'm not exactly popular in such spaces but they haven't gotten rid of me yet and I hope I have helped a few see the truth of things now and again. I'm sure there are worse hobbies to pick up in retirement and I might do some good along the way. Of course, that's not the only reason I spend my time this way. There's a much worse reason I have for perusing those forums. It's that in some ways I'm no better than the people I'm arguing with. I still haven't truly given up the search.
There is a part of me that just can't give it up. A part that hopes one day there will be some big revelation, that something will get leaked on one of these forums, incontrovertible evidence that it was true all along. Part of me still wants to believe it was all true. That the search I and my colleagues dedicated ourselves to was good and worthy and we weren't truly duped by that horrid man Goebbels after all.But that also means that there's a part of me, that on some level, is rooting for Nazis to be alive and well. A secret Nazi cabal, hiding in their lunar fortress, waiting to take us all down. How could I possibly want that?It's enough to drive a man loony...don't you think?
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