Re: Blood and Iron

Bruno rarely allowed himself a full day off. But this one; this he had promised Heidi weeks in advance.

The streets of Innsbruck were unusually quiet for a Saturday, softened by the whisper of early snowfall drifting over the rooftops.

Christmas lights were just beginning to appear in the windows, despite the calendar still sitting firmly in November.

Heidi clung gently to Bruno's arm, her wool coat wrapped tightly around her waist, her hair pinned neatly beneath a fur-lined beret.

"You're still thinking about the war," she murmured, not accusingly; just knowingly.

Bruno didn't deny it. "You know me... But at least today… I'm trying."

She smiled and leaned her head slightly against his shoulder as they turned the corner toward the State Imperial Theater.

The marquee glowed gold in the fading light: "EISERN HERZ" Based on True Events – The Volunteers of the Iron Division.

A small line waited outside, mostly couples and older men in dark coats and medals. Many had come for the spectacle; others for the memory. Few had lived it.

Inside, the theater was warm, fragrant with pipe smoke and roasted chestnuts. A soft melody played over the loudspeakers:

"Auf Stählerner Straße."

Heidi guided Bruno to the balcony seating; private, velvet-lined, reserved. He had made the arrangements the moment they settled on a date.

She gave him a wink. "The Grand Prince of Tyrol never ceases with the chivalry it would appear..."

Bruno laughed softly while raising a finger to his lips before pointing to the screen as the lights darkened around them.

The film opened in black and white, but quickly shifted into full color; a vibrant, grain-textured palette that mimicked reality more than artifice.

The sound was fully voiced, each line carefully spoken, matched to the actors' movements with uncanny accuracy. It was the latest in film technology, developed by one of Bruno's many subsidiaries and the brilliant men employed within it.

It told the story of the Iron Division; young men, barely out of school, who volunteered in 1905 to fight alongside the last cohort that swore loyalty to the Russian monarchy after the Bolsheviks attempted their revolution.

The setting was bleak: snow, mud, and endless fields of fire.

There were echoes of famous war movies from Bruno's past life. But with sharper moral certainty.

The opening scene; young volunteers arriving by ship in Saint Petersburg. Led by none other than an actor who portrayed a young Bruno himself.

They met with the haggard Tsarist Loyalists and Black Hundreds militias who were under siege, and just about out of will to fight.

What followed was an intense battle scene, with practical effects far beyond that which would have graced any other film of the era. The heroic stand against Leon Trotsky and his red army, resulting in their total annihilation.

But Bruno noticed something more.

Not just the heroism; but the message.

The Bolsheviks were portrayed not merely as enemies, but as ideological vessels, faceless, dehumanized, consumed by fire and blood. Literal demons in a fight to overthrow law, order, and legitimacy.

The music swelled every time a banner was torn down, or a child was saved from Red execution squads.

This wasn't just propaganda; how could it be when its director had stood in the trenches outside Tsaritsyn himself? And had participated in the campaign to take Volga Oblast from the Bolshevik terror.

It was accurate, even if exaggerated for dramatic effect.

Heidi leaned over midway through the film, whispering, teasing: "I must say... The lead actor is quite handsome and heroic... but I feel like he's missing a certain recklessness that the real man embodied so foolishly..."

Bruno smirked as he leaned in to his wife and whispered so closely he was practically kissing her ear.

"You would know... You're the fool who married him."

Heidi pushed Bruno away, pouting that her joke hadn't managed to get under her man's skin.

"At the film's climax, the film cut away from the final battle, and instead faded into a shot over the Swiss Alps, the quaint city of Geneva and a cafe so modest one would never believe it to be the scene of a gruesome crime.

Vladimir Lenin, sat within its confines, clutching a cup of coffee in his hands, and the morning paper in the other.

Ever the coward, he had fled the Russian Empire as what little remained of his supporters were hunted down and executed for their crimes against Tsar, Faith and Fatherland.

He looked relaxed, clean, perhaps even a bit dignified. And then came the gunshot in the dark, and the scene cut to black.

The killer was never identified. What followed was a solemn narration detailing the crimes of the Bolsheviks, and those of the movements they would inspire for decades to come.

With the text having faded away into darkness, the film ended on a close-up of the battered Iron Division flag being raised from the ruins of what appeared to be Belgorod, smoke all around, sunlight breaking through the ash.

When the credits rolled, nobody clapped. They stood instead; dozens of veterans, much older now than they had been in the time the film took place.

Bruno said nothing for a long time.

Later that evening, they sat at a candlelit table in one of Innsbruck's quiet, tucked-away restaurants. A bottle of dark red sat open between them, half-finished. The windows shimmered with frost.

"Was it accurate?" Heidi asked.

Bruno took a slow sip. "Painfully so..."

Heidi said nothing. She remembered what Bruno had been like when he came home from that war. It was the first time he had tasted real war.

If what happened in the eastern world in 1900 and 1904 were considered wars in their own right. Then, the Russian Civil War was the first meat grinder Bruno had personally witnessed.

It had changed the man forever, and she had never forgotten it.

She reached across the table and touched his hand. "This next one will be our last, right?"

Bruno looked out the window for a moment, then turned back to her. He didn't need to say it, because like always she already knew his thoughts before they were spoken.

Heidi smiled, bittersweet. "You're tired again."

"I'm happy," he said, correcting her softly. "But yes… tired... just a little."

She held his hand a little tighter. "Even so, I'm glad we came. Not for the film. For the time."

Bruno smiled at last. "So am I… More than you know."

Outside, the snow had thickened. And inside the warm little restaurant, for one night, there was no war.

No politics. Just two people. Two hearts. And a moment of quiet; earned through the sacrifice of a thousand unspoken names.