by Timur Vermes
That is to say, I would have risen at eleven, had not the telephone rung out at the crack of dawn, around nine. On the line was a lady with an unpronounceable name of Slavic origin. Jodl would never have put someone like that through to me, but Jodl, alas!, was German history. Still woozy with sleep, I hunted for the receiver.
“Hrmm?”
“Good morning, Frau Krwtsczyk here,” a mercilessly cheerful voice sang out. “From Flashlight!”
What irritates me most of all about these morning people is their horribly good temper, as if they had been up for three hours and already conquered France. Particularly since the vast majority of them, in spite of rising so appallingly early, have performed anything but great deeds. In Berlin I have time and again met people who make no secret of the fact that their only reason for stirring at such an ungodly hour of the morning is so that they can leave the office earlier in the afternoon. I have suggested to several of these eight-hour logicians that they ought to start work at ten o’clock at night, thereby allowing them to leave at six in the morning and perhaps even arrive home before it is time to get up. Some even took this for a serious suggestion. In my opinion, only bakers need to work early in the morning.
And the Gestapo, of course – that is self-evident. To tear the Bolshevist rabble from their beds, so long as they are not Bolshevist bakers. For they would already be awake, and thus the Gestapo, for their part, would have to get up even earlier, and so on and so forth.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m calling from the contracts department,” the voice exulted. “I’m just preparing your documents and I’ve got a few questions. I don’t know, should we do it over the phone … ? Or would you rather come in?”
“What sort of questions?”
“Oh, you know, very general ones. Social insurance, bank details, that sort of stuff. For example, what name should I put on the contract?”
“What name?”
“I mean, I don’t know what your name is.”
“Hitler,” I groaned. “Adolf.”
“Yeah,” she laughed again with her blood-curdling morning enthusiasm. “No, I meant your real name.”
“Hitler! Adolf!” I said, indignant now.
A brief silence followed.
“Really?”
“Yes, of course!”
“Well, that’s … I mean, that’s a coincidence.”
“A coincidence? How so?”
“You know, that you’re called …”
“For goodness’ sake, woman, you have a name too. But I am not sitting here, wide-eyed, and screeching, ‘Oooh, what a coincidence!’”
“I know, but you look like it too. Your name, I mean.”
“And? So you look quite different from your name, do you?”
“No, but …”
“Well then! In God’s name get those damned papers finished,” I barked, slamming down the receiver.
Seven minutes later the telephone rang again.
“What now?”
“Yes, it’s me again. Frau …” and then came that queer oriental name which sounded like someone scrunching up a Wehrmacht report. “I … I’m afraid it’s not going to work …”
“What is not going to work?”
“Look, I don’t want to be unfriendly, but … it’ll never get through the legal department, I can’t … I mean, when they look at the contract and see ‘Adolf Hitler’ there …”
“Well, what else would you want to write?”
“Please excuse me for asking you again, but … is that really your name?”
“No,” I said, tortured. “Of course not. My real name is Schmul Rosenzweig.”
“I knew it,” she said with audible relief. “How do you write that – Schmul? With a ‘c’?”
“That was a joke!” I screamed into the receiver.
“Oh. Damn. Pity.”
I could hear her crossing something out several times. Then she said, “I … please … I think it might be better if you did pop by after all. I need something like a passport. And your bank details.”
“Ask Bormann,” I said curtly into the receiver, and hung up. Then I sat down. This was irritating. And complicated. Feeling sorry for myself, indeed on the brink of despair, I let my thoughts wander back to loyal Bormann. Bormann, who always organised feature films for me so that I could enjoy a little evening relaxation after a hard day’s warmongering. Bormann, who had arranged everything so smoothly with the residents of the Obersalzberg. Bormann, who had also dealt with the income from my book sales. Bormann, the most loyal of them all. With him by my side I was confident that many, most things in fact, were in the best possible hands. He would have sorted out contracts like this without the tiniest hitch. “This is your last warning, Frau Catarrh-Throat. You will issue these contract documents at once or you and your family will find yourselves in Dachau. And I’m sure you are aware of just how many people come back from there.” Bormann’s empathy and sensitivity, his ability to deal with people, were greatly underestimated. He would have found me an apartment in a flash, as well as an impeccable set of personal documents, bank accounts, everything. On second thoughts it might be more accurate to say that he would have ensured nobody requested such bureaucratic niceties a second time. But now life had to go on without him. And somehow the matter of my papers had to be settled. How I would have handled this in the 1930s was anybody’s guess, but now – for better or worse – I had to follow present-day convention. I set my keen mind to the problem.
I imagined I would have to register with the authorities. And yet I had neither fixed abode nor proof of identity. The evidence for my existence was effectively based on my lodgings at the hotel and the production company’s recognition of me, but on paper I had no proof to offer. I clenched my fist in fury and shook it at the ceiling. Papers – German bourgeois officialdom with its petty, mean-spirited rules and regulations. Once more this perfidious millstone around the neck of the German people was throwing a spanner in the works. My situation seemed utterly hopeless – I could see no way out – and then the telephone rang again. Only the iron resolve and quick-wittedness of the former front-line soldier allowed me to home in on the target. I picked up, sure of finding a solution, but still uncertain as to how.
“It’s Frau Krwtsczyk from Flashlight again.”
The simple answer came to me at once.
“Listen here, woman,” I said. “Put me through to Sensenbrink.”
x
It is a popular misconception that a Führer needs to know everything. He does not have to know everything. He does not even have to know most things; indeed it can be the case that he need not know anything at all. He can be the most ignorant of the ignorant. Yes, and blind and deaf too in the tragic wake of an enemy bomb blast. On a wooden leg. Or even without arms and legs, rendering the Nazi salute impossible at parades, and when the German anthem is sung only a bitter tear runs from a lifeless eye. I will even postulate that a Führer can be without memory. A total amnesiac. For a Führer’s unique talent is not the accumulation of dry facts – his unique talent is rapid decision-making, and assuming responsibility for those decisions. Critics love to make light of this, citing the old joke about the man who – when moving house, for example – chooses to carry the “responsibility” rather than any crates. But in the ideal state the leader ensures that each man is effective in just the right capacity. Bormann was not a leader, but rather a master of thought and memory. He knew everything. Some referred to him behind his back as “the Führer’s filing cabinet”, which I always found rather touching as I could not have hoped for a more telling endorsement of my policy. At any rate, it was a far greater compliment than I ever heard paid to Göring: “the Führer’s hot air balloon”.
Ultimately it was this knowledge, this ability to separate the useful from the pointless, which allowed me, notwithstanding the absence of Bormann, to perceive the new opportunities offered by the production company. Given the precarious situation caused by my
lack of papers, it was pointless to try to solve the problem of official registration by myself, so I assigned this task to someone who no doubt had greater manoeuvrability in his dealings with the authorities – Sensenbrink. Straight away he said, “Yeah, we’ll park that one for you. You worry about your programme and we’ll fix everything else. What do you need going forward?”
“Ask that Frau Krytchthingummy. An identity card, I assume. And more besides.”
“Don’t you have a passport? No I.D. card? How’s that possible?”
“I never had need of one.”
“Haven’t you ever been abroad?”
“Well, obviously: Poland, France, Hungary …”
“O.K., they’re inside the E.U.”
“And the Soviet Union.”
“You got in there without a passport?”
I thought about it for a moment.
“I cannot recollect anybody having asked me for one,” I replied confidently.
“Strange. But what about America? I mean, you’re fifty-six. Haven’t you ever been to America?”
“I did, very seriously, plan to go,” I said. “But unfortunately I was stopped in my tracks.”
“O.K., so all we need are your papers, then I’m sure one of us can operationalise the registration and health insurance for you.”
“This is the problem. There are no papers.”
“No papers? None at all? Not even at your girlfriend’s? I mean, at home?”
“My last home,” I said sadly, “was devoured by flames.”
“I see – oh – you’re being serious now?”
“Have you seen the Reich Chancellery of late?”
He laughed. “That bad?”
“I do not see what there is to laugh about,” I said. “It was devastating.”
“Fine,” Sensenbrink said. “I’m no expert, mind, but we’re going to need some sort of papers. Where were you registered before? Or insured?”
“I always had something of an aversion to bureaucracy,” I said. “I preferred to make the laws myself.”
“Hmmm,” Sensenbrink sighed. “Well, I’ve never had a case like this before. We’ll see what we can leverage, O.K.? But at the very least we’re going to need your real name.”
“Hitler,” I said. “Adolf.”
“Listen, I’ve got every sympathy for your situation, don’t get me wrong. That Schröder chap is exactly the same; away from the stage he loves his peace and quiet. And given how controversial your topic is you need to be careful as an artist – but I’m not sure the authorities will see it the same way.”
“I have no interest in the details.”
“I bet you don’t,” Sensenbrink laughed, a touch too condescendingly for my liking. “As far as I’m concerned you’re the consummate artist. But it really would make things easier. You see, there’s no problem with tax. The finance office is the only one that doesn’t give a damn; if necessary they’ll tax illegal immigrants and negotiate cash payments. And if you want, we can arrange all the payments and help you manage your money, so I don’t expect it would be the long pole in the bank’s tent. But I’ll bottomline for you: it’ll be like putting socks on an octopus with the registration office or social insurance. We’ll be chipping out of the bunker with no green to work with.”
I had no idea what the man was saying, but sensed that he was in need of moral support. The troops must not be overextended. After all, it is not every day that a Reich chancellor believed long dead parades himself through the country as fresh as a daisy.
“It must be difficult for you,” I said, indulging him.
“What?”
“Well, I imagine you seldom encounter people like me.”
Sensenbrink laughed.
“Of course we do – it’s our job!”
His composure came as such a surprise that I had to probe further: “So there are more like me?”
“Come on, you know as well as I do that there are all sorts in your line of work …”
“And you arrange for them all to be broadcast?”
“Can you imagine the work we’d have on our plates? No, we only contract those we believe in.”
“Excellent,” I said. “One must fight for the cause with fanatical belief. Do you have Antonescu as well? Or the Duce?”
“Who?”
“You know: Mussolini.”
“No!” Sensenbrink said so firmly that I could see him shaking his head down the telephone wire. “What would we do with an Antonini? He’s low-visibility; no-one knows who he is.”
“Or Churchill? Eisenhower? Chamberlain?”
“Oh, now I know which direction your arrows are firing in!” Sensenbrink roared into the telephone. “No, no. Where would the humour be in that? We’d never gain any traction. No, you’re perfect as you are. We’re going to stick with one character, we’re going to stick with our Adolf!”
“Very good,” I said, then immediately delved deeper: “What happens if Stalin turns up tomorrow?”
“You can forget Stalin,” he said, pledging his allegiance. “We’re not the History Channel.”
This was the Sensenbrink I wanted to hear! Sensenbrink the fanatic, awakened by his Führer.
And here I cannot overemphasise the importance of a fanatical will. This was most clearly demonstrated by the course of the last world war, which was not always unproblematic. No doubt some will say, “Was it really a lack of fanatical will which resulted in the Second World War ending as unfavourably as the First? Was there not perhaps another reason, maybe an insufficient supply of manpower?” All of this is feasible, even possibly correct, but it is also the symptom of an ancient German disease, namely that of hunting for mistakes in the small details while ignoring the larger, clearer picture.
Naturally, one cannot deny that we suffered from a certain numerical inferiority of troops in the last world war. But this inferiority was not decisive; on the contrary, the German Volk could have coped with a greater superiority of enemy numbers. Indeed, on a number of occasions in the early 1940s I even regretted that the enemy did not have more troops. Just look at the inferiority enjoyed by Frederick the Great: twelve enemy soldiers to each Prussian grenadier! Whereas in Russia it was three or four Bolshevists per Aryan warrior.
It is true that after Stalingrad the superiority of the enemy was far more befitting to the honour of the Wehrmacht. On the day of the Allied landings in Normandy, the enemy advanced with 2,600 bombers and 650 fighter planes. If I remember rightly, the Luftwaffe resisted with two fighter aircraft – a truly honourable ratio. And yet the position was not hopeless! I wholeheartedly endorse the words of Reich Minister Dr Goebbels, who demanded that if the numerical disadvantage could not be rectified, then the German Volk must compensate for it in other ways, whether this be with better weapons, smarter generals or, as in this case, the advantage of superior morale. At first glance, the simple fighter pilot may consider it a near-hopeless task to take three bombers out of the sky with every shot, but with superior morale, with an unwavering, fanatical spirit, everything is possible!
This holds as true today as it did back then. And now I came across an example of fanaticism that even I would have thought impossible. And yet it was perfectly genuine. I observed a man – an employee of my hotel, I presume – who was engaged in a fascinating new activity. In fact, I cannot be absolutely sure that this activity is new; it is just that I remember it being performed differently, that is to say, with a broom or a rake. This man wielded a completely new type of portable leaf-blowing machine. A mesmerising apparatus with extraordinary blowing power, which I expect had become necessary to confront the more resistant forms of foliage that evolution must have given rise to over the intervening years.
I was able to infer from this that the racial struggle is far from over; on the contrary, it continues to surge in nature with greater intensity. Not even today’s bourgeois-liberal press dares to deny it. One reads of the American grey squirrel supplanting the indigenous red species, so beloved
of the German Volk; of tribes of African ants marching across the Iberian Peninsula; of Indo-Germanic balsams naturalising and spreading in this country. This last development is to be welcomed, of course; Aryan plants have every right to colonise the space which is their due. Now, I had not seen this novel, more combative foliage at close quarters – the leaves on the hotel’s motor park seemed perfectly normal to me – but the blowing apparatus could just as easily be deployed against traditional leaves. After all, when driving a Königstiger tank you do not restrict yourself to taking on T-34s; if necessary you engage the old BT-7s too.
When for the first time I observed the man I was indignant. I had been woken that morning – it may have been around nine-thirty – by an infernal din, as if my pillow were nestling against a Soviet rocket launcher. I rose in a fury, hurried to the window, glared out and spotted that very man busily operating his blowing device. My wrath was only multiplied when I looked at the surrounding trees and saw that it was gusting. How absolutely preposterous it was to blow leaves from one place to another on a day like this! My first instinct was to race outside, vent my anger and give him a proper dressing-down. But I thought better of it. For I was in the wrong.
The man had been issued with an order. And he was executing the order. With a fanatical loyalty my leading generals would have done well to imitate. A man was following orders – it was as simple as that. Was he complaining? Was he moaning that it was a pointless task in this wind? No, he was performing his ear-splitting duty bravely and stoically. Like a loyal S.S. man. Thousands of these had completed their tasks regardless of the burden placed on them, even though they could have easily complained, “What are we to do with all these Jews? It makes no sense anymore; they’re being delivered faster than we can load them into the gas chambers!”
I was so moved that I dressed swiftly, hurried out to the worker, put a hand on his shoulder and said, “My good man, I should like to thank you. It is for people like you that I will continue my struggle. For I know that from this leaf-blasting apparatus, indeed from every leaf-blasting apparatus in the Reich, blows the red-hot breath of National Socialism.”
