At the mouth of the Elbe lies the Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the third largest city in Germany behind only Vienna and Germania itself. The birthplace of the Hanseatic league, since medieval times Hamburg has been the preeminent naval port connecting Germany to the rest of the world. In the post-war order, her stature only becomes more significant.

But little is stable in Hamburg. A hotbed of liberal agitation since the 19th century, Hamburg now finds itself torn between the reformists, the conservatives, and behind closed doors, even anti-fascist revolutionaries.

But for the subversives captured by the Gestapo, a horrible fate lies just a few miles upstream. There sits Neuengamme, the largest concentration camp in Germany proper, a symbol of Nazi tyranny in the eyes of nearly the entire world.