by Timur Vermes
xii
It never ceases to amaze me how the creative genius of the Aryan race refuses to be suppressed. This is an axiom I recognised long ago, and still I find myself surprised by how it holds true time and again, even in the most adverse circumstances.
Assuming, of course, that the climate is right.
Once upon a time I had to lead unfailingly asinine discussions about the murky pre-history of the forest-dwelling Germanic peoples. And I never denied that, when it is cold, the Teuton does nothing. Apart from light a fire, perhaps. Just look at the Norwegian or the Swede. It came as no surprise to learn of the success the Swede has recently enjoyed with his furniture. In that rotten state of his the Swede is permanently on the lookout for firewood, so it is no wonder that from time to time this might result in the odd table or chair. Or a so-called social system, which delivers heat free of charge into the apartment blocks of millions of parasites. This can only lead to spinelessness and greater sloth. No, besides the Swiss, the Swede displays the worst facets of the Teuton, but – and let us never lose sight of the fact – this is all down to climate. As soon as the Teuton makes his way south, he is seized by an inventiveness, a will to create, and so he builds the Acropolis in Athens, the Alhambra in Spain, the pyramids in Egypt. We know all this, it is so self-evident that it is all too easy to overlook; many fail to see the Aryan for the building. The same is true of America, of course: without German immigrants the American would be nothing. Time and again have I rued the fact that it was not possible to offer every German his own land back then; at the beginning of the twentieth century we lost hundreds of thousands of emigrants to the Americans. A curious development, I should like to point out, for very few of them became farmers over there; they could have just as easily remained here. I expect, however, that most of them imagined the countryside was bigger in America and that it would only be a matter of time before they were allocated their own farm. In the meantime, of course, they had to earn their daily bread in different ways. Thus these men sought out careers, small artisanal activities such as shoemaking, joinery or atomic physics – whatever was going. And that Douglas Engelbart, well, his father had already emigrated to Washington, which is further south than one thinks, but young Engelbart then goes to California, which is even further south; there his Germanic blood begins to roil, and he promptly invents this mouse apparatus.
Fantastic.
I have to say that I was never particular taken by this computing stuff. I was only faintly aware of what Zuse was bolting together – I believe his work was being funded by some ministry or other – but in essence it was something for the boffins. Zuse’s electronic brain was far too unwieldy to be of any use on the front; I would not have liked to see him trying to wade through the Pinsk Marshes with it. Or parachuting into Crete – the man would have dropped like a stone. One would have had to equip him with a military glider, and what for, ultimately? In essence it was just glorified mental arithmetic. You can say what you like about Schacht, but anything Zuse’s machine computed Schacht could have calculated half-asleep after seventy-two hours under enemy fire while buttering a slice of army bread. And thus I was initially reluctant when Fräulein Krömeier put me in front of this screen.
“I have no need to acquaint myself with such equipment,” I said. “You are the secretary here!”
“Just sit down here then, mein Führer,” Fräulein Krömeier said – I recall the moment as if it were yesterday. “Else you’ll be like, ‘Can you help me with this?’ and ‘Can you help me with that?’ and I’ll be like, so totally busy with you? That I won’t be able to get on with my own work?”
I was not especially keen on her tone, but her surly manner reminded me very vividly of when Adolf Müller gave me a rudimentary lesson in the basics of driving. Müller was pretty tough on me, I have to say, although this was less a reflection of his concern for the national question and more down to his fear that if I broke my neck he would lose his print order for the Völkischer Beobachter. Müller was not a professional driving instructor, but a businessman first and foremost. Although perhaps I am doing him an injustice; I have since learned that he shot himself soon after the war, and let’s face it, there’s no profit in suicide. In any event he took me in his automobile to show me how to drive correctly, or more accurately, what to watch out for when one has a chauffeur. Müller’s was a tremendously valuable lesson, in which I learned more than I had from any number of professors over the years. At this juncture I should like to make it quite clear that I do listen to people other than those old-school cretins on the general staff. Many may be better than I at driving a motorcar, but when it comes to tidying up a front line or judging how long to offer resistance when caught in a pocket, then I am still the one who makes the decision and not some Herr Paulus who is starting to get cold feet.
The very thought of it!
Ah well. Next time.
Anyway, on the basis of various reminiscences I declared myself willing to follow Fräulein Krömeier’s instructions, and I must say it was worth my while. I had always been put off by typewriters. I never wanted to be an accountant or pen-pusher, and I had dictated my books. The last thing I wanted to do was type away like some pea-brained hack in a local rag, but then this miracle of German resourcefulness arrived: the mouse contraption.
Rarely can there have been a more ingenious invention.
As you manoeuvre this mouse contraption around the table, a small hand moves on the screen in precisely the same way. And whenever you want to touch a place on the screen, you press on this mouse and the small hand actually touches that place on the screen. It is so childishly simple and I was utterly fascinated. Naturally, the computer would have been no more than an entertaining diversion if its sole purpose were to simplify a few office tasks. But this piece of equipment turned out to be an extraordinarily composite tool.
One could use it to write, but through the wiring system one could also make contact with all the individuals and institutions who had likewise agreed to be part of this network. Moreover, unlike with the telephone, not all participants had to be sitting at their computers, rather they could simply deposit things, allowing one to retrieve them in their absence – all manner of peddlers engaged in this practice. What especially pleased me, however, was that newspapers and periodicals, indeed every possible form of information was accessible. It was like a vast library with unrestricted opening hours. How I could have done with that! How many hard days had I spent making tough military decisions, after which all I wanted was to indulge in a little reading at two o’clock in the morning. Admittedly, Bormann did his best, but how many books can a simple Reichsleiter procure? Besides, space in the Wolf’s Lair was not unlimited. This wonderful technology, on the other hand, which is called the “Inter-network”, offered absolutely everything all day long and at night too. All one had to do was to search for it in a contraption called “Google” and touch the result with that magnificent mouse. Before long I established that I kept arriving at the same address: a proto-Germanic reference work called Vikipedia, an easily recognisable compound of ‘encyclopedia’ and those ancient Germans with exploration in their blood, the Vikings.
It was a project which brought me to the verge of tears.
Here, nobody thought of himself. In the true spirit of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice, countless people were compiling all manner of knowledge for the greater good of the German nation, without demanding a pfennig for their labour. It was like a charitable campaign for knowledge, which demonstrated that even in the absence of the National Socialist Party the German Volk instinctively worked to support its fellow man, even if there was a certain question mark hanging over the expertise of these selfless comrades.
For instance, to cite just one example, I was delighted to note that my vice-chancellor, von Papen, had bragged in 1932 that within two months of my accession to power I would be pushed against the wall until I squeaked. But elsewhere in this Inter-network one could read that von Pape
n believed this would be accomplished within three months rather than two, and in yet another place the time frame cited was six weeks. Frequently he thought that I would be pushed into a corner rather than against the wall. Or even into a tight spot. And perhaps I was not going to be pushed, but squashed, while maybe the goal was not to have me squeak, but squeal. Ultimately, the bemused reader was left to work out the truth for himself – von Papen had wanted to manoeuvre me in some way into some place within a period of time between six and twelve weeks until I emitted some sort of high-pitched sound. Which was still astonishingly close to the actual intention of that self-appointed “strategist” back then.
“Got an address yet?” Fräulein Krömeier asked.
“I am staying in a hotel,” I said.
“E-mail – electronic post.”
“Send it to the hotel, too!”
“That’s like, a ‘no’ then,” she said, typing something into her computer. “What name shall I register you under?”
I frowned at her.
“Under what name, mein Führer?”
“Under my own,” I said. “Naturally!”
“I imagine that’s going to be like, difficult?” she said, typing away.
“What the devil is so difficult about it?” I asked. “Under which name do you receive your post?”
“Vulcania17 at web Dee Eee?” she said. “There we go: your name’s not allowed.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I can try it with a few other providers, but I doubt it’ll make much difference. And even if were allowed, I bet one of those nutters has already like, taken it? L.O.L.”
“What do you mean, ‘taken it’?” I asked in irritation. “There is more than one man called Adolf Hitler, just as more than one man has the name Hans Müller. The postal service does not insist that only one man is allowed to be called Hans Müller. One cannot monopolise a name!”
To begin with she appeared slightly confused, then she cast me a look not dissimilar to one I had often received from the ancient Reich President Hindenburg.
“There’s only one of each address,” she said firmly and very slowly – without turning it into a question this time – as if she were worried that I should not otherwise be able to follow her explanation. Then she carried on typing.
“Here we are: Adolf dot Hitler’s gone,” she said. “As is Adolf Hitler all one word and Adolf underscore Hitler, too.”
“What do you mean, ‘underscore’? There’s nothing ‘under’ about me,” I spat. “I am a member of the master race, not some kind of Slav!” But Fräulein Krömeier was already typing again.
“AHitler and A dot Hitler have both gone too,” she announced. “Just Hitler and just Adolf as well.”
“Then we will simply have to get them back,” I thundered.
“You can’t get anything back,” she said petulantly.
“Bormann could! How else would we have got all those houses on the Obersalzberg? Do you really imagine it was uninhabited beforehand? No! People were living there, but Bormann had his ways and means …”
“Would you rather Herr Bormann sorted out your e-mail address?” Fräulein Krömeier asked, sounding anxious and slightly aggrieved.
“I’m afraid Bormann is currently unlocatable,” I conceded. Not wishing to demoralise the troops, I added, “Listen, I’m sure you’re doing your best.”
“O.K. In the meantime I’ll just like, go on?” she said. “Do you mind telling me when your birthday is?”
“20th April, 1889.”
“Hitler89 – gone. Hitler204 – no, we’re not getting anywhere with your name.”
“What impertinence!” I said.
“What about like, choosing another name? I mean, I’m not really called Vulcania17.”
“But this is an outrage! I am not just any old clown!”
“That’s what it’s like on the Internet. Like, first come, first served? You could choose something symbolic?”
“A pseudonym?”
“That sort of thing.”
“Right … I’ll have Wolf, then,” I said grudgingly.
“Wolf on its own? Someone’s bound to have that already. It’s too simple.”
“Then in God’s name make it Wolf’s Lair!”
She typed.
“Gone. You can have WolfsLair6.”
“But I’m not Wolf’s Lair 6!”
“Wait a sec, what else could we do? Hey, what was that thing called: Obersalzbach?”
“Berg! Obersalzberg!”
She typed. Then she said. “Oops. I don’t suppose you want Obersalzberg6, do you?” And without waiting for an answer she continued, “Let me try ReichChancellery. That would be good. Well … you can have ReichChancellery1.”
“Not Reich Chancellery,” I said. “Try ‘New Reich Chancellery’. At least I liked that building.”
She typed again. “Bingo!” she said. “It works. L.O.L.” In that brief moment I must have seemed somewhat disheartened; at any rate she felt obliged to reassure me, and said in a well-nigh maternal tone, “Don’t look so sad! You’ll get your e-mail at the New Reich Chancellery. It sounds brilliant!” She paused, shook her head and added, “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I think you like, do that so brilliantly! It’s just so totally convincing? L.O.L. I’ll have to watch out or I might start thinking you like, really were alive then …”
For a minute or so neither of us said a word while she typed more things into the computer.
Then I said, “Who supervises all of this? Surely there is no longer a ministry of Reich propaganda.”
“No-one,” she said. Then she probed me cautiously: “But – you know all that, don’t you? It’s all part of the act, isn’t it? I mean, that I’ve got to explain everything to you? As if you just turned up yesterday?”
“I am not accountable to you,” I said, somewhat more harshly than I’d intended. “Answer my question!”
“Well,” she said with a sigh. “It’s all pretty unregulated … mein Führer. I mean, we’re not in China. They censor it there.”
“Good to know,” I said.
xiii
I am relieved that I was not around to see the Allied Powers carve up the Reich after the war; it would have cleft my heart. On the other hand, in view of the state of the country back then, I doubt it would have made a grain of difference. Particularly as grain had been in very short supply, as I was able to glean from a variety of documents that had unquestionably been distorted by propaganda. The winter of 1946 was said to have been especially disagreeable, but I was unable to find anything bad about it: the ancient Spartan ideal of education held that relentless hardship produces the strongest children and peoples. A winter of starvation burns mercilessly in a nation’s memory, and ensures that in the future it will think twice before losing another world war.
If one chooses to believe the democratic writers of history, fighting only continued for one pathetic week following my withdrawal from active politics at the end of April 1945. This is a disgrace. Dönitz called off the resistance of the Werwolf partisans, and Bormann’s expensive bunker installations were never properly used. I accept that, no matter how many human lives we sacrificed, we would still have had to count on the Russians flooding Berlin with their hordes. But I had relished the prospect of reading about a catalogue of nasty surprises devised for the arrogant Americans – now, to my bitter disappointment, I learned that there had not been a single one.
A fiasco.
What I had written in 1924 had proved true once more: by the end of a major war the most valuable elements of the Volk have fallen selflessly at the front, leaving behind only the mediocre and inferior chaff, who then of course consider themselves too good or, paradoxically, even too refined to go underground and prepare a good old-fashioned bloodbath for the Americans.
And I admit to having made a mental note at this point in my deliberations. It is fascinating how, with the benefit of a certain distance, one can see things from a wholly new perspec
tive. Having already established that the best elements of the Volk die prematurely, how could I assume that things should have been any different in this war? I therefore promised myself, “Next war: inferior specimens first!” Then, when it occurred to me that an initial offensive by inferior warriors might fail to achieve the desired outcome, I amended this mental note to “Mediocre first”, then “Best first, but promptly substitute with mediocre and possibly inferior,” only to add, “combine with the quite good and very good”. In the end I scrubbed everything out, noted “Cleverer distribution of the good, mediocre and inferior!” and decided to postpone solving this particular problem. Contrary to what the petty-minded may assume, the Führer is not obliged to come up with answers immediately – he needs only to have them up his sleeve at the right time. And in this instance let us say that the right time would be at the outbreak of the next war.
I was only faintly surprised by the course of events that followed the miserable surrender by that moron Dönitz. The Allies did in fact squabble over the spoils as fervently as I had predicted – regrettably, however, they did not forget to divide them up. The Russians kept their share of Poland and in return for this generously gifted the Poles Silesia. Led by a group of Social Democrats, Austria broke away into neutrality. Across the rest of Germany, what were essentially puppet regimes – some well-disguised, others less so – were installed by means of democratic-looking processes, under the leadership of such characters as the former convicts Adenauer and Honecker, the corpulent economic soothsayer Erhard or – nor much of a surprise either – Kiesinger, one of those hundreds of thousands of half-hearted fellows who rushed to join the Party in 1933. I must say it gave me a certain satisfaction to read that this bandwagon-jumper was ultimately undone by his joining of the N.S.D.A.P. at the eleventh hour.
Naturally, the victors implemented their old plan of injecting the Volk with an excessive dose of federalism, to ensure perpetual discord within the nation. They created a number of states, called Bundesländer, which from the outset interfered in each other’s affairs and picked to pieces all those resolutions passed by the totally inept federal parliament. The most lasting and senseless harm inflicted by this Allied policy was on my beloved Bavaria. Here, where once I had laid the foundation stone of my movement, the population revered the most cretinous thugs, who aspired to hide their sanctimonious piety and incorrigible venality by brandishing and emptying large tankards of beer. Their most honest enterprises were occasional visits to brothels.
