The next morning in Potsdam, with the frost still on the palace windows and half the court nursing champagne headaches, Oskar sat in a smaller council chamber with Karl and a handful of trusted ministers and engineers.
He didn't bother with pleasantries.
"First," he said, jabbing a finger onto the table map, "Volksbau. Homes for the people. We build modern, affordable apartments for workers. Real homes—not these rotting boxes they sleep in now."
Several officials frowned. They were used to talking about railways, tariffs, and ships—not toilets.
Oskar pressed on.
"Every home gets its own bathroom," he said. "Not a bucket in the corner, not a shared toilet in the courtyard. A real toilet. A proper washroom. If not a full bath, then at least a shower or a tiled washing area. Solid floors. Dry walls. Kitchens with proper stoves and later—" he tapped the table, eyes bright— "refrigerators."
"For every family?" one official asked, stunned.
"For every apartment," Oskar corrected. "I'm not saying we build palaces. But every home should have:
reliable heating,
big windows for light and air,
safe staircases,
wide hallways,
clean courtyards where children can play without stepping in filth."
The ministers exchanged looks. Some saw only cost. Others saw headlines. Karl saw numbers, markets, and leases.
"We start in Potsdam," Oskar said. "Pilot blocks. Then Berlin. Once it works, we go to Hamburg, Munich, the Ruhr. Volksbau will be a company, not a charity. Affordable rents, yes—but profitable if done smart. Good housing is good economics."
"And who will build all of this?" another official asked, skeptical.
Oskar gave him a flat look.
"The Reicherts," he said. "And a hundred thousand men like them. Half the families I visited last night were in construction. They know bricks and mortar. They just need standards, guidance—and work."
That was point one.
Point two was power.
"Housing without power is just a box," Oskar said. "If we want clean cities, we need cheap electricity and decent heating."
Coal plants, he already had. With the Diesels' help, turbines and boilers were being modernized to squeeze every bit of energy out of every lump of coal.
But coal alone wouldn't be enough.
"Hydroelectric dams," he said. "We know the theory already. Water falls, turbines spin, generators turn. Germany has rivers and hills; we'd be fools not to use them."
He pulled a sheet of paper closer and sketched rough diagrams—lines for rivers, tiny teeth for turbines.
"And for rivers without big drops: floating river turbines. Steel propellers in a frame anchored in the current. They spin, they power small generators. One unit can light thirty homes. Not enough for Berlin, but perfect for villages. Simple steel, simple gears. Even in 1906, we can do this."
The engineers present leaned in, interest piqued despite themselves.
"And we combine power with heat," Oskar continued. "Combined heat and power plants. You burn coal or biomass, turn turbines for electricity, and instead of wasting the heat, you pipe it out to homes. District heating. Hot water under streets into radiators. One plant could change winter in an entire district."
For a moment, his mind returned to the Reichert children shivering on Linienstraße.
That alone would be worth it.
Karl, who had been scribbling frantically, looked up.
"And the third point?" he asked.
Oskar sat back and smiled.
"The German Man Project."
Karl groaned softly into his hands. Several ministers blinked.
"GERMAN MAN," Oskar proclaimed, "Defender of Health, Honor, Hygiene, and Humanity."
Silence.
One of the ministers coughed. Karl muttered, "Here we go…"
"It's a comic book," Oskar clarified, undeterred. "For children. For people who don't want to read thick manuals. Big pictures. Simple words. Heroic stories. Not about war—about doing the right thing. Being strong, healthy, decent. And, occasionally, about swatting monsters with red eye lasers."
A few heads snapped up at that.
"In the story," he said, leaning forward, eyes lighting with that dangerous creative gleam, "German Man falls from the stars into Germany. The Empress finds him and adopts him. He grows up at court but dreams of helping the people. So one year he trains like mad—one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, ten kilometers of running every day, plus a very good diet of eggs and green vegetables. At the end, he becomes tall, incredibly strong, and very handsome." He spread his hands. "Obviously inspired by a certain prince we all know."
A couple of ministers coughed again—this time to hide smiles.
"He sews himself a ridiculous skin-tight uniform," Oskar went on cheerfully. "Dark, with a big 'G' on the chest and a cape. At night he sneaks out of the palace to help people: carrying heavy loads, lifting broken wagons from ditches, plowing fields in an hour, pulling people out of fires."
"What about enemies?" one of the more conservative officials asked skeptically. "Every story needs enemies, Your Highness."
"Of course," Oskar said. "The Mole People. An underground race of blind monsters who live beneath the earth and want to conquer the surface. One day they erupt from below—E Day, Emergence Day—an army of snarling creatures in ragged armor with crude weapons. So German Man must unite all nations of the surface world to force them back underground and defeat their monstrous queen."
The room was quiet.
On the surface, several men looked faintly horrified.
But under that, one could see it in their eyes: they understood, at least in part, what he was doing.
Stories for children.
Stories about unity, strength, health.
Stories that taught them to admire not only swords and flags—but also clean streets, warm homes, and people who helped.
Karl sighed.
"…Mole people," he whispered in despair, massaging his temples.
"Yes, my man. Mole people. Symbolic."
Oskar shrugged as if this were the most logical thing in the world.
"The point is: it's fun. It's easy to read. And if every child in Germany grows up loving a hero who talks about hygiene, exercise, courage, helping neighbors, and uniting nations instead of hating them… that's worth more than you think."
He spread his sketches across the table—German Man in a cape, German Man lifting wagons, German Man fighting subterranean terrors with glaring red "discipline lasers" from his eyes.
The ministers looked halfway between amusement and existential dread.
Oskar continued as if lecturing schoolchildren:
"Here is the plan. We publish German Man first in late January 1906. Cheap paper. Clear drawings. Simple words. Then we translate it across Europe. It's perfect for countries where literacy is still low. Heroic pictures do half the work."
He tapped one of the drawings—German Man standing triumphantly atop a broken Mole People tunnel.
"And of course… if you squint… he looks vaguely like someone we know. Someone remarkably handsome. Tall. Muscular. Heroic."
He flexed one bicep demonstratively.
The ministers rolled their eyes.
Karl prayed for patience.
But later, as they walked down the corridor, Karl muttered something more thoughtful:
"Comics for children… housing for families… power for cities…"
He glanced sideways at Oskar.
"You want them to grow up in your world. A world you designed."
Oskar grinned.
"Exactly. We shape minds with books. We shape lives with homes and electricity. The rest follows naturally."
Meanwhile, Europe moved—loudly, and without waiting for him.
In January 1906, delegates of the great powers gathered at the Algeciras Conference to resolve the Moroccan crisis Kaiser Wilhelm had helped ignite with his theatrical ride into Tangier.
Germany arrived expecting a duel of diplomacy.
Instead, it felt more like a staged execution.
Britain stood behind France.
Russia followed Britain.
Spain, for its own reasons, backed France as well.
Italy wavered.
Austria-Hungary remained polite but unhelpful.
When the treaty was signed, Morocco was theoretically "independent," but in practice:
France and Spain gained control of Moroccan policing,
Germany received nothing more than vague guarantees of "economic access."
On paper, it looked like a compromise.
In Berlin, it tasted like humiliation.
The newspapers called it the "Schmach von Algeciras"—the Shame of Algeciras.
Berlin cafés buzzed with outrage.
Workers cursed British arrogance.
Middle-class professionals muttered that France had humiliated Germany again.
Nationalists roared that the Empire must never be put in such a weak position again.
Under that rising wave of anger, the Reichstag took up the Naval Law once more.
If diplomacy could not win respect, perhaps steel would.
The first amendment to the Naval Law passed swiftly—almost hungrily.
It authorized 940 million Marks over the next decade.
Beginning the following year, Germany would lay down:
2 battleships each year,
1 large cruiser,
and a steady stream of smaller vessels.
By 1917, on paper at least, the German Empire would boast:
38 battleships,
20 large cruisers,
38 smaller cruisers,
—a fleet openly designed to challenge the Royal Navy.
And the public loved it.
Industrialists saw contracts.
Workers saw jobs.
Soldiers saw pride restored.
Politicians saw votes.
The newspapers practically salivated.
"If we had possessed a fleet equal to Britain's," they wrote,
"Algeciras would never have happened."
Blame for the diplomatic failure fell not on the Kaiser—never publicly—but on foreigners:
Britain the meddler.
Spain the opportunist.
France the schemer.
And in this feverish climate, something interesting happened quietly in the shadows:
Oskar's industrial empire expanded even faster.
The German Works shipyard grew.
Steel orders from Krupp doubled.
Engine designs advanced at a pace no one else in Europe could match.
The Nassau-class blueprints — which, at that exact moment, were being shredded into confetti in Oskar's room by three mischievous toddlers while Anna, distracted, helped Tanya sketch escape-proof collars and harnesses for "safe outdoor walks with your precious pets — dogs, cats, and, apparently, in Florida even alligators," according to a recent letter from a very enthusiastic rich man in Florida this was something the people there desired and Angelworks would then provide. All in all, Oskar's designs were turning into reality and humming with imminent reality.
Volksbau and German Man would shape hearts and minds.
But armor plate, turbines, and naval guns — now fueled by a nation's wounded pride —
would forge the steel of the future.
And everyone sensed it:
When words failed again, Germany would speak in battleships.
And thanks to Oskar…
those battleships would be unlike anything Europe had ever seen.