Bruno was surprised to see, not a fortnight later, that the Kaiser had requested his presence at the royal palace in Berlin. Normally, a train ride from Innsbruck to the capital of the German Reich would have been a logistical nightmare—draining time, patience, and energy. But this was the dawn of a new era.
Sufficient numbers of Ju-52s had now been built not only for military use but also for the budding infrastructure of future commercial aviation. While the public airways had not yet opened fully, Bruno—as always—moved ahead of the curve. He simply hitched a ride aboard a Luftstreitkräfte transport bound for Berlin.
What once would have consumed the better part of a day became a brief, calculated maneuver. And so, within hours, Bruno stood in full military gala uniform in the Kaiser's palace, flanked by the ornate banners of the Reich. Yet it was not the grandeur of the palace that caught his attention—but two familiar faces waiting within.
