"Mr. Hans, here is your prize. A total of five million marks. Taxes, of course, are to be settled from the prize according to Imperial law."
Karl von Jonarett, General Manager of the German Welfare Lottery Company, stood on a small platform in a Düsseldorf bank hall, smiling as brightly as the gas lamps overhead. In his hand was a large, freshly issued check.
After confirming the first-prize winner, Karl had rushed from Berlin to Düsseldorf overnight, the five-million-mark check locked in a reinforced case under guard. At the same time, he had notified the major newspapers.
Now, in front of reporters, bank officials, and a crowd of curious locals, he publicly presented the prize to Hans Albrecht, coal miner.
"I… I'm very grateful," Hans stammered, cheeks red, hands shaking. He felt as if he were floating. He had never truly expected God—or anyone—to favor him.
Even after taxes, he would receive just over four million marks. For him, that was beyond huge. With that kind of money, he would never have to go down into the pit again. His wife and children would no longer have to cram into a damp, two-room flat with thin walls and thinner blankets.
"Mr. Hans, what are your feelings right now?" a reporter called out, eyes gleaming with envy. If he had won, he thought, he'd never write another damned article again.
Hans swallowed, trying to find words that weren't just incoherent shouting.
"I am very excited… and very happy," he managed. "I thank God, and I thank the German Welfare Lottery Company. I am a coal miner. Life has been very hard for us. But now…" His voice trembled slightly. "Now my life will be completely different."
He didn't say:
His father had gone to war in 1870 wearing a Prussian uniform and come back half a man, lungs ruined, leg shattered.
A "hero of the Empire" with no proper pension, who had coughed himself into an early grave while politicians gave speeches about glory.
The way his mother had taken in laundry and sewing until her fingers bled, and how he'd gone down the shaft at fourteen because someone had to eat.
But it was all there, in his face, in his calloused hands.
Another reporter raised his pad. "Mr. Karl, could you say a few words about your company's purpose?"
Karl adjusted his jacket and stepped forward. He had practiced this.
"Dear friends of the press," Karl said, voice firm, "the mission of the German Welfare Lottery Company is simple: to give ordinary people a chance to change their fate."
He spread his arms.
"Two marks is not a trivial sum for workers and small folk, but it is also not unreachable. For the price of a little sacrifice, people receive hope. A chance—however small—to win a prize that can transform their lives."
He gestured toward Hans.
"You see before you a coal miner, a son of a soldier, a man who has worked hard all his life. Today, because of a single ticket, his children will never have to go into the pit unless they choose to. This is what we mean by 'changing destiny.'"
The reporters scribbled furiously. Karl continued:
"In addition, our company is a welfare company in truth, not just in name. From every drawing, a fixed portion of our profits is set aside for social projects—assistance for the poor, support for orphanages, and other public welfare. We want not only to make private lives better, but also to strengthen society as a whole."
He bowed slightly.
A wave of applause swept the hall. Some clapped because they meant it. Some clapped because everyone else was clapping. Some clapped because they could already imagine tomorrow's headline.
And then the crowd parted.
A tall figure stepped through.
At first glance, he looked like a homeless war veteran: a broad-shouldered man in a slightly battered German uniform, coat stained, boots scuffed, hair a mess.
He moved with the easy confidence of a trained body, but everything else screamed "strange vagrant."
Hans blinked.
The man walked straight up to him, eyes bright, and thrust a folded paper into his hand.
"My man," the stranger said in heavy, odd German, "as a miner, here is a miner bonus gift."
Hans stared at him. "A… what?"
"Plans," the man said enthusiastically. "Plans for first real protective equipment for miners. Simple steel helmets with soft cushions inside, gloves with better grip, maybe even boots. Good stuff, my man. If you want, you can use your winning money to make these ideas real. Make big company. Make more money. Save miners' heads."
He tapped Hans's shoulder.
"If you don't do it, I will do it later instead, my man."
Hans was utterly lost. He looked down at the paper—rough sketches of helmet designs, padding marked in, notes about "falling rocks bad, helmets good" scribbled in terrible handwriting.
"…Thanks… I guess," Hans managed.
Then the strange man grabbed Hans's wrist and lifted his arm high into the air like a victorious boxer.
"MY MAN!" the stranger shouted. "WINNER MAN!"
For one heartbeat, the hall went dead silent.
Karl covered his face with both hands.
A woman in the crowd squinted, leaned forward, then suddenly gasped.
"Wait… that's not a homeless man," she shouted. "That's the Fifth Prince!"
The word hit the room like dynamite.
"Prince Oskar?"
"His Royal Highness?"
"The weird one?"
Suddenly everyone was talking at once. Applause broke out again, louder, mixed with astonished laughter and the ferocious scratching of reporters' pens.
Oskar, now obviously recognizable despite the stains and the smell, smiled and waved awkwardly.
"Hallo, my mans… and womans," he said. "Very nice day."
It was raining outside. Nobody corrected him.
Karl elbowed his way through the crowd, face red.
"Your Highness," he hissed under his breath, "please stop surprising people like this."
"It's publicity, my man," Oskar whispered back. "Organic advertising."
Despite the chaos, everything went well enough. Hans received his official documents and instructions; the bank confirmed the prize; the reporters got exactly the kind of story they loved:
"COAL MINER WINS FIVE MILLION MARKS!"
"PRINCE PRESENTS CHECK TO WORKER!"
"FIFTH PRINCE AND DWARF BUSINESSMAN CHANGE FATE OF RUHR FAMILY!"
Oskar and Karl made sure generous "public relations fees" followed the story.
The results showed in the numbers.
Sales of the Double Color Ball climbed again. Many people wanted to become rich like Hans. Quite a few also wanted the chance to meet the odd, sweaty prince in person—because a personal story with royalty was a kind of prize on its own.
Two marks were not cheap for ordinary people. But at the wage level of the time, if you saved a bit and skipped a beer or two, you could buy a ticket. That was all the opening hope needed.
By the fourth issue, total ticket sales for a single draw had risen to forty million marks.
Oskar's smell had also risen to catastrophic levels. Karl had started quietly, then not-so-quietly, begging him to bathe and change clothes.
"Your Highness," Karl said one day, pinching his nose, "our profits are clean. You are not."
After deducting costs and prize money, Oskar and his team's profit on that fourth issue alone reached about four million marks.
Of that, Oskar's personal share was two million.
With this continuous stream of income, the "battleship plan" was no longer a fantasy. It was a matter of time and construction schedules.
The booming sales of the Double Color Ball inevitably attracted attention.
Many people wanted a piece of this golden goose. Some wanted the goose; some wanted the eggs; some wanted the farm around it.
But they quickly discovered it was not so simple.
Even if Wilhelm II did not particularly favor his fifth son, Oskar was still a Prince of Prussia. To launch an attack on a prince's business was, indirectly, to challenge the royal family.
Without very serious backing, that was… unhealthy.
On top of that, the German Welfare Lottery Company was now donating millions of marks every week to the Imperial civil authorities for social welfare—hospitals, orphanages, poor relief. Newspapers had begun calling it "the lottery that feeds the hungry."
To openly attack such a company would invite public outrage.
But even so, Oskar could feel the pressure mounting.
As the weekly profit figures climbed, the eyes watching them grew hungrier.
In a capitalist society like the Reich, not even the royal family could ignore the large industrial and banking dynasties—steel barons, coal magnates, banking families in Frankfurt and Hamburg.
Oskar's own understanding of who was who was… fuzzy. In his head, American oil kings, German steel dynasties, and old Jewish banking houses all blurred together into one ominous category: "people who can buy and sell you and not notice."
He didn't have the details right. But his instincts were not wrong.
One evening, in their Berlin office, Oskar sat across from Karl with a ledger open between them.
"Karl," he said, tapping the page, "so far, we have run six drawings. Total profit: ten million marks. We have already donated two million to the civil affairs ministry. That leaves eight million. This check—" he pulled one out and slid it across the table "—is one million marks. It belongs to you."
Karl picked it up, staring at the numbers like they might float away.
"Thank you, Your Highness," he said softly. "I never imagined we would recover our costs in just barely over ten days. From now on, it's all pure profit."
Ten percent of the profits meant Karl was now making more per month than many noble estates pulled in per year. He tried not to think about it too hard.
"According to current trends," he said, half joking, "if this continues, I might actually be able to find a wife who doesn't mind marrying a dwarf."
Oskar grinned.
"Rich dwarf is still dwarf, but rich," he said. "Many people like rich."
The smile faded a little as he leaned back.
"Hmm. But the fact that we've made so much money has obviously made others jealous. There are probably quite a few capitalists already trying to find a way to… let's say 'merge' us."
Karl's expression grew serious.
"Your Highness, can your status not deter them?" he asked.
"For a while," Oskar said. "For a while, it makes them cautious. But as we make more money, some of them will think: 'What is one small prince to us?' At that point, my status alone won't scare them."
He smiled wryly.
"If I were Crown Prince, maybe they would hesitate. But I am only the fifth. Extra son. Optional content."
"Then what should we do?" Karl frowned. He understood, from watching his father in court, how ruthless accumulation of capital could be. When profits were large enough, morality, law, and even royalty sometimes became… negotiable.
Oskar drummed his fingers.
"Karl," he said finally, "go to the palace. Find your father. Give him this check."
He wrote quickly, tore it from the book, and folded it neatly.
"Our earlier decision was to give twenty percent of our profits to the royal family. Time to show good faith. Ask your father to present this to my imperial father with our respects."
Karl weighed the folded paper in his hand.
He didn't need to open it to know it was a serious amount.
"I hope," Oskar continued, "that for the sake of this money—and our father–son relationship—His Majesty will agree to provide us with protection. Or at least to make it clear that attacking us is… unwise."
Karl nodded.
"Understood, Your Highness. I will go to Potsdam immediately."
He knew that if the royal family gave even a subtle signal, many greedy hands would pull back in fear. After the unification of Germany, the prestige of the Hohenzollerns was still immense. Even the biggest industrialists and financiers preferred to be seen as allies, not enemies, of the Kaiser.
But money had a way of eroding fear over time.
If Oskar wanted to keep his golden goose—and his battleship dream—he would need not just luck and brains, but shields.
And nothing said "shield" in the German Empire quite like making sure your business put money directly into the Emperor's pocket.