From the Ashes

by Sandra Saidak

  In a covered car, Adolf was conveyed to the primary studio of the world’s single broadcasting station. Security here was nearly as tight as at the Führer’s palace. Guards paraded around the studio environs, halting and searching already harried technicians and clerks as they ran back and forth with cables, clipboards and trays of pastries.

  “The speech is scheduled for 1200 hours,” a large, authoritative man was telling the chief guard. “Until then he’s your responsibility.”

  The sergeant craned his neck, as if trying to see all possible danger in the passageways, alcoves and dark corners that surrounded the military escort. “We must have a room! Something small and easily guarded!”

  “I thought you boys like a challenge,” the civilian said with a sneer. Then he frowned. “Volmer!” A breathless young man skidded to a halt in front of them.

  “Yes, sir?” he said, eyes widening at the sight of Adolf.

  “Show these men to green room three. And get makeup in there. Fifteen minutes. Might as well have him ready early. At least someone in the Reich can show these politicians how a production is supposed to be staged.”

  Adolf was taken to a small room, empty but for a ragged brown sofa, and a battered wooden table that held an empty pitcher and three dirty glasses. A large glass window, soundproof and probably bulletproof, overlooked the chaotic bustle in the surrounding studio.

  He went to the window and looked out across the busy studio as they prepared for the Salvation of the Reich. Soon Adolf, the misguided prodigal son, would tell the world the rebellion was over. The Golden Age of the Thousand Year Reich was just around the corner; theirs to have if they would just obey without question their Illustrious Leaders.

  Or else he would read Heydrich’s speech, and launch an attack that would result in men like Heydrich running the world.

  Neither option was acceptable. And, he had to admit, neither option would save Ilsa or his family.

  He had to find another solution. The fact that his own brilliant idea of grabbing the very same studio in which he now stood was being handed to him on a silver platter was the only thing that kept him searching.

  Like a rat in a maze.

  The door opened, momentarily shattering the silence with a rush of noise from the studio. Dr. Von Dymler came in alone.

  “How are you feeling, Adolf?” the doctor asked.

  “Just peachy,” said Adolf.

  Von Dymler laughed. “Yes, I guess that was a stupid question, wasn’t it? I noticed that you didn’t make use of the typewriter and paper. Are you sure you’re ready? Would you like to go over any of your ideas? There are some things that will have to be covered.”

  “Such as?”

  “The people should hear the names of as many high ranking collaborators as you know of. It will be better for everyone—including them and their families—if it’s all out in the open now. The Führer has agreed to grant pardons to everyone who comes forward in the first twenty-four hours after your speech, and agrees to follow in your footsteps.

  “Unfortunately, I’m afraid that one day won’t be enough. There are bound to be some holdouts; dreamers who’ll need weeks, maybe even months to finally accept the inevitable defeat of the rebellion. Others, especially those from high ranking families like yours, might feel they’re safe enough to remain hidden, just blend into the background, and keep their youthful flirtation with disaster as a dirty little secret. It won't work. They will all be caught and executed.

  “Their only hope will be you, Adolf. Tell the truth now, while there’s still time.”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of a young man carrying a heavy makeup kit. “Later!” snapped Von Dymler.

  “I’m sorry, Mein Herr,” the young man croaked. “But I have my orders…”

  “Yes, fine, go ahead!” Von Dymler clasped Adolf on the shoulder and said, “I have faith in you, Adolf.”

  Then he was gone. The makeup artist fumbled with the clasps on the case. “Please be seated and look up toward the ceiling, Herr Goebbels,” he said. Adolf did so, trying once again to figure out what he was supposed to do. He was greatly annoyed when the makeup boy decided to start talking.

  “I have an important job for you, Herr Goebbels, and not much time, so listen carefully.” He began to clumsily apply the base on Adolf’s forehead. “I’m not really a makeup artist; I was sent because they knew you would recognize me.”

  “Ouch!” Adolf pushed him away as the brush jabbed his eye. “I can believe you’re not a makeup artist!” He stared at the young Aryan man before him. “But I don’t know you.”

  “Bruno Schmidt!” he whispered urgently. “My sister Helga was a friend of your Leisl! You have to remember me, everything depends on it!” Aware that they could be seen by nearly everybody, Bruno continued to fling makeup onto Adolf’s face.

  “The Alliance is ready to put our poor Führer out of his misery and take over the government, but we need your help. We’re prepared to offer you the role of Speaker for the Provisional Government. All you have to do is…”

  Adolf shook off Bruno’s hands. “You’ll have to take a number and get in line,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Go find my secretary and make an appointment. She’s currently handling all my contracts with the various coups and conspiracies. I suggest you bring along some silk stockings to bribe her with, as there are already several factions ahead of you.” He stood up. Bruno remained in shock just a second too long. “Get out of here!” Adolf yelled, loud enough to be heard through the soundproof glass.

  When the guards opened to door, he shoved Bruno through it. “Get me a different makeup artist!” he bellowed to no one in particular. Then to Bruno he shouted. “If I discover you’ve ruined my face for the broadcast, you’re dead!”

  Bruno scampered away while the guards, who apparently found Adolf’s outburst perfectly appropriate for an aristocrat about to go before the cameras, ignored Bruno and hurried to find another makeup artist.

  A few moments later, a woman rushed in. While she had no messages from any new conspiracy, she was, to Adolf’s surprise, an actual makeup artist. Adolf heard later that he looked marvelous.

  The makeup woman left, the guards came in, and, after complementing his appearance, led Adolf into a small, brightly lit room and seated him behind a cheap desk with an elaborate ebony façade. A pair of crossed cavalry sabers with the Crest of the Third Reich hung on the wall directly behind. Cameras were all around him.

  “Ten minutes until air time,” someone shouted from beyond the glass walled booth.

  And then Adolf was alone in a still and silent room.

  The calm before the storm, he thought.

  Then, from where Adolf never knew, came another thought. The darkness before dawn.

  In the sudden stillness, Adolf felt a sense that could only be called…hope?

  Absurd, of course, but there it was. An intense, irrational conviction that if he could find the right words, he could save the world. And the right words seemed to hover just beyond his sight.

  Adolf closed his eyes, and silently addressed God—though exactly Who that was, he still wasn’t sure.

  “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for those things I said to You back in Finland. And I’m sorry I never had time to feel You in my life the way some of the others have.

  “But I’m grateful to have known You at all. Because of You—or those who proclaimed themselves Your Chosen People—I’ve lived a life I never would have had any other way. I had the rare privilege of sensing what life outside Nazi tyranny might have been, and I've seen the goodness that’s possible in the human race.

  “Maybe if a better man had grabbed this role before I did, someone who could have spoken with Your voice; Your authority… Your…seal?”

  Ilsa’s carefully chosen words of the night before came back to him: twice she had used the word ‘seal’—and she had mentioned the holiday of Purim.

  From across the years rushed th
e memory of the first Jewish festival Adolf had ever led, and the story he had read while the others reeled in drunken oblivion.

  Within the book of Esther was a code so simple, yet so obtuse, it just might work. Adolf wondered why he hadn’t seen it before.

  “But sending the message is only half the solution,” Adolf continued silently. “Where’s the switch that will disconnect the men in the bunkers from their sense of duty to the Führer and Operation Scorched Earth?”

  Then, like a sun exploding inside his skull, Adolf saw that answer as well. An answer handed to him by both Ilsa and the Führer himself. “Remember their own words to you…” she had said.

  The Führer had bragged about the loyal families entrusted with carrying out his final orders…the same families named and arranged in careful groups on the list he had received in Finland more than a month before.

  “Sixty seconds,” said a disembodied voice. Cameras rotated, lights shone in Adolf’s face, and the whirring of electronic equipment sound like the roar of the ocean.

  “Herr Goebbels, are you okay in there? You’re white as a ghost! Makeup! What happened? Get someone in there—“

  “No time! Five, four, three, two…you’re on!”

  And Adolf Goebbels came face to face with the entire world.

  “People of the Third Reich,” Adolf said, as he twisted the crumpled remains of the speech Heydrich had given him with sweaty hands. The power and certainty of his voice amazed him. “My name is Adolf Goebbels and I have a favor to ask each and every one of you. I humbly beg you to stop whatever you are doing, and listen to me.”

  He paused for breath, and in that moment, everything became clear. He knew what to say. He knew how to say it.

  “Throughout the recent difficulties, many of you have turned to strange cults, in the hopes of finding answers and salvation. I, myself, have fallen into this trap. I too, worshipped the false gods, Esther and Mordecai.

  “We are citizens and subjects of the greatest empire in history. That is where we must find our answers. At times like these, we must think of all the good our government has accomplished, of all the things that our leaders have done for us personally. Then we will know what we must do.” Again he paused.

  “Any further attempt to overthrow this government would be futile, and cost countless lives. In the end, it could cost all our lives.

  “With the hopes of preventing that terrible end, I will now name all of my fellow conspirators.”

  From the depths of his memory, Adolf drew the names. The desk, the cameras, the entire world around him receded. Names tumbled from his mouth; a few of them had faces; most were just pen marks on a sheet of paper he had read in Finland.

  “Dietrich Bormann, son of Joseph Bormann. Otto Mengele, son of Leopold Mengele. Katrina Schultz, daughter of Wagner Schultz, Eva Eichmann Mengele, daughter of Franz Eichmann…”

  And so it went on. When at last the river of names ceased flowing, over forty close relatives of founders of the Reich had been named. As he spoke the last one, Adolf slumped back exhausted. He had barely enough strength to command his final message.

  “Each of those I have named, and the thousands of others who watch me now, and understand my words, must do your duty, as followers of the Second Order.

  “Thank you for listening. Heil the Führer.”

  With that, the speech was over. Adolf bowed his head as cameras shut off, and waited to die.

  CHAPTER 34

  The door to the booth flew open and the sounds of chaos poured in. Guards were everywhere, asking for orders, and seemingly afraid to touch Adolf until those orders were made clear.

  “What did you do?”

  Adolf looked up to see Von Dymler towering over him, looking angry and confused, yet more than a little awed.

  “Why I merely followed your orders, Herr Doctor,” said Adolf in a voice of bewildered innocence. “I told the people that resistance was futile and I named my co conspirators.”

  “Those people could not possibly have all been traitors! They are members of the most trusted and powerful families in the Reich! Some of them are related to the Führer himself! They hold the most sensitive positions—“

  “Surely, Doctor, you of all people understand just how insidious this movement has been. Had it been anything less, the Reich would not be hanging by a thread now.”

  “And what did you mean by the Second Order?”

  This man was more perceptive than was safe, thought Adolf.

  “Merely a salute to our Divine Savior. One of his early books, as you may know, was called “My New Order—“

  “Every school child knows that! But what of this Second Order? A new government, perhaps? With you in charge?”

  “If you’ve studied me half as well as you think you have, Doctor, you know I have no interest in ruling the world.” Adolf relaxed, grateful that for once, he could speak the simple truth.

  “Have you figured out what he did yet?” A man Adolf recognized from the Führer’s bath glowered at the psychologist.

  Von Dymler stared at Adolf for a long moment. “No. But we’ll know soon enough. Tell your people to monitor all movement. I’m talking planetwide, not just suspected hot spots.”

  “We know our jobs, Herr Doctor,” the other man said coldly. To the guards he said, “Keep him here. Be ready to move him at a moment’s notice. And keep alert.”

  And Adolf was once again alone.

  The world around him spun like a silent movie shown in slow motion. In the dim lighting, he could see the huge live audience, hidden from view during the broadcast, buzzing around like an overturned beehive. He tried to pick out his family, but could not. It was probably better that way.

  Adolf wondered how long he had to live, whether it would be measured in minutes or seconds. He wondered if his message had been understood, and felt a pang of regret that he would probably never know. Yet more than anything, he felt relief. His job was finally over, and somehow, in those final minutes, he had found faith.

  A banging on the window caught his attention. A young technician was pointing at the blinking and beeping equipment around Adolf, and arguing with one of the guards. After a long and boring debate, the guard shrugged, and opened the door for the technician.

  The young man never looked at Adolf, only bent to his work of turning off and securing equipment. As he passed close to Adolf, however he whispered, “Shalom, Rabbi.”

  “Shalom, friend,” Adolf responded, not really surprised to find that his own organization had an agent working here. After all, everyone else’s did.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” The young man dared to sneak a look at Adolf as he wound up a length of cable. “You sent a message.” Adolf read hope and awe in the boy’s blue eyes.

  He rolled his own eyes to indicate the lack of privacy in the studio.

  “Privacy’s been taken care of,” said the technician as he knelt by Adolf’s feet to unplug something. “You may not know this, but at least two of your own people have already tried to assassinate you before you could make the broadcast. But me, I knew you’d never betray us. And I knew you’d find a way to send a message. I had it all planned out, how I’d throw myself between you and the bullets. I’d already rigged my camera to keep filming.”

  “Sorry to spoil your plans.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll have plenty more chances to die heroically. As soon as you called Esther and Mordecai gods, I knew you were telling everyone to disregard what they were forcing you to say, and listen for a code.”

  “But did anyone besides you understand it?” Adolf whispered.

  “I’m not even sure I did! But I know the story of Esther. After Hayman sent out the first order under the king’s seal, calling for the murder of all the Jews, Esther revealed his plot to the king and begged him to rescind the order. The king couldn’t, because a royal decree couldn’t be revoked, but he agreed to send a second order, telling the Jews to arm themselves and fight for their lives.”
/>   “And they won,” said Adolf. “For the first time in recorded history.”

  The boy’s eyes grew even wider. “And that’s what you told them to do! My God, you did it! You gave the signal—“

  “If they understood it.”

  “They did! I’m sure they did. Something’s happening out there, and no one’s saying exactly what! But, Rabbi? What about all those names you listed? All those rebels?”

  “They aren’t rebels,” Adolf said quietly. “They are the loved ones of those who man the switches for Operation Scorched Earth.”

  “Operation Scorched…? Oh. But how did you know…?”

  Adolf glanced upward, and then watched as the boy seemed ready to faint.

  “Hey you!” A screaming guard leveled a rifle at the technician. “I said no talking!” The boy bounded away like a frightened rabbit, and Adolf was left alone to his questions.

  Something’s happening. But what? We discussed Mordecai and Esther as code words at the conference, but we never had time to agree on them. So is everyone rising up to overthrow the Third Reich, or only a small fraction, while everyone else argues? Have I just sent millions to their deaths? And if I have, will it be worth it? Can it ever be worth it at that price?

  Or, is human life on earth about to end, because of what I said?

  Oh, God, I really need to know!

  And suddenly, Adolf did.

  He felt disoriented, as if he were floating out of his body. Then, he seemed to see the earth spread out before him, and hear thousands of voices shouting at once. Adolf closed his eyes and found that if he concentrated, he could distinguish one voice from another, like tuning a radio.

  Throughout the world, the cry was raised.

  “Vikings to the longboats!”

  “Let freedom ring…”

  “Uhuru!”

  “Banzai!”

  “Jean has a long mustache.”

  In Johannesburg, South Africa, every government building and Party residence was reduced to rubble within one hour of Adolf’s broadcast.