April 10, 1964

The night’s sleep had been pleasant and Hans Decher was snuggled up with his wife Ilse for the first time in what felt like ages. He could hear the soft patter of rain on the window behind the bed frame - along with the chitter-chatter of children in another room. Hans grumbled and mumbled, taking his arms off his wife and slowly climbed out of bed, tiptoeing to the door and carefully opening it. In the hallway, the younger Decher children that

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Ilse had turned the television on and was listening to the Norddeutscher Tagesschau’s morning news as she was making breakfast for the children. Hans prepared his first cup of coffee and sat at the dinner table and began eating, listening to the TV intently: more casualties in the Southwest Africa bush war; the Beatles were still touring North America; protests and trials in the CSA; rock musician Adolf Lewerenz’s single Mein Kleine Wagen had soared to number one on the charts; the USA was gearing up for election in November and it was predicted to be a safe victory for incumbent Hubert Humphrey; Reichschancellor Erhard was staying in Essen to dedicate a brand new nuclear power plant near the Ruhr River; protests outside the Soviet embassy in Fez against the alleged involvement in an assassination attempt on Sultan Hassan II; the League of Nations had just adopted a resolution condemning a British air attack on a fort in Yemen that killed twenty-five people twelve days earlier; rising tensions between Tanganyika and Zanzibar, the latter now a socialist republic after a revolution overthrew the Arab monarchy back in January; a ceasefire had broken out between Ethiopia and Somalia amidst a border war that had been raging since early February; the Ukrainian government announced possible discovery of natural gas reserves in the country’s east; Siemens had just announced a new computer system, the 3302; another round of student protests in the Turkestani city of Akmola; Texian President Johnson and the Texan Senate was debating on ending the Republic's policy of segregation; Brazilian troops, under command of General Da Silva, had arrived in Ndongo while the kingdom's government petitions Portugal to guarantee its total independence; Japan had recently announcement of a planned return of western prisoners, including a Californian L-219 spy plane pilot who had been shot down over Southeast Asia almost two years prior and a British agent who had infiltrated the Kwantung Army, in response to concerns about a potential boycott of the coming Olympic games in Tokyo; and terrible flooding and storms continued in southeast Dakima; Hans smirked, “looks like another busy day in the world.” A chuckle was heard from Ilse as she was still preparing sausages for their demanding offspring.

The eldest brood had finally come down the stairs, all with good moods and good prospects of the future ahead of them. Hans’ firstborn son Axel was enlisted in the Kaiser’s navy and was about to join the Unterseebooteflotten much like his father did before the war, to the former’s chagrin. The elder Decher had had a traumatic experience as a U-boat captain, patrolling for months on end in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Indian Oceans, and his boat, SM U-1904, was nearly sunk several times during these sorties against the enemy; he tried to dissuade Axel from joining the submarine service, instead guiding him toward the Marineflieger instead. But the boy was as stubborn as his mother, so he refused and signed up for the submarine fleet instead and he was slated to be shipped off to Kiel to begin training soon. His eldest daughter, Heidi, was soon to leave for medical university, as she aspired to become a practicing doctor d

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Hans exits the family’s house amidst the pouring rain and climbs into his blue Humber Imperial, which sat out on the driveway as his wife’s BMW and Heidi’s Skoda coupe occupied the garage along with the children’s various bicycles. The Dechers’ American-style bungalow was one of many within this particular neighborhood within Lichtenrade built as part of the postwar economic boom as many families moved into the suburb boroughs and towns surrounding Berlin. A life like this was simply infeasible back when Hans and Ilse were Axel, Heidi, Doris, and Sonja’s age

starts the car, backs off the driveway, and then shifts gears to start his morning route to work in Kripo headquarters. T

Berlin police and Prussian Landgendarmerie, distinguished by their black uniforms and helmets, were in Opel Kapitans

S An Iranian tourist family, the wife wearing a headdress

Turkish cleaning lady

Jakob Weiss, elderly Jew, apartment on Ansbacherstrasse

Prinz Friedrich Carl hotel four flags: Berlin city, the Kingdom of Prussia, the Reich, and Mitteleuropa

U-Boat Tactics: 1939-1945 Reichsarchiv

Preußische Geheimpolizei, clad in black uniforms and driving unmarked BMW 1800s

SiPo - Security Police, denoted by their Jager Shakos

Flughafen Otto Lilienthal, located in the northwest suburbs, was Berlin’s primary international airport, seeing much in the way of traffic coming in from all across western Eurasia, North Africa, and the opposite shore of the North Atlantic.

with Lufthansa Junkers, Lohners, and Husnik-Vlasaks, LOT Zalewskis, Ala Littoria Bredas, Aeria Due Sicilie Zurzulis, Aeroflot Tupolevs, Air France Breguets, KLM Fokker-Dorniers, Iranian Airways Demins, BEA Comets, SLA Lapplands, and TWA Böings, Douglases, and Convairs

Flat concrete and glass buildings designed by Albert Speer, with a statue of Otto Lilienthal on his glider outside the main terminal’s front entrance.

Wosar at desk

Terminal

Hans eyed Luther, the elder sar was busy munching a sausage, the glint of the ceiling light reflecting off of his spectacles; the bureaucrat's revelation was the final curtain pull on the mystery Hans was deeply ingrained in. A murder mystery involving Junkers was one thing, a plot to assassinate a foreign head of state was certainly another. T