The snow fell in heavy curtains outside the military hospital in Berlin, muffling the city's usual noise.
The Reich capital, normally all steel and thunder, seemed to bow its head that day.
Inside, the corridors were quiet, nurses moving softly, as though even their footfalls might disturb the presence of death.
Bruno von Zehntner, Reichsmarschall, Grand Prince of Tyrol, the Lion of the Alps, moved with his usual stride.
Though on an occasion like this, there was an unusual somber within his pale blue eyes.
At the end of the hall, guarded discreetly by two of his adjutants, a door bore the simple plaque:
Bruno von Zehntner, Sr.
The old man had lived nearly a century.
Once a proud Junker of Prussia, then an industrialist, then the patriarch of nine sons.
He had stood in the year Kaiser Wilhelm I was crowned, and had mourned when the old Emperor was finally laid to rest.
