Look Who’s Back

by Timur Vermes

  The 1936 Olympic Games came to mind. Perhaps not purely by coincidence, for the blonde woman in the photograph reminded me distinctly of Helen Mayer, the fencing Jewess. Consider the following scenario: You’re hosting the Olympic Games; you have a fantastic opportunity for excellent, nay, the very best possible propaganda. You can make a positive impression on the world outside, you can win time for rearmament if you are still weak. And you have to decide whether during all of this you are going to continue to persecute Jews, thereby forfeiting all the advantages you have gained. In such a situation it is imperative to set crystal-clear priorities. Thus you allow Helene Mayer to compete, even if she only gets a silver medal. And you must tell yourself, “Fine. I shall persecute no Jews for a fortnight. Alright, let’s make it three weeks.” And just as in the past, now it was essential to win time. Sure enough, I had obtained a certain acceptance amongst the Volk. But did I have a movement behind me yet? I needed and liked Fräulein Krömeier. And if Fräulein Krömeier had an undetected portion of Jewish blood running through her veins, I had to find an accommodation with this.

  Not that it would have bothered me. If the rest of the genetic material is of sufficiently high quality, the body can sustain a certain portion of Jewish blood without its having an effect on the person’s character and racial features. Whenever Himmler disputed this, I reminded him of my splendid Emil Maurice. Having a Jewish great-grandfather did not prevent him from being my key man in dozens of brawls, faithfully at my side, in the front line against the Bolshevist brood. I intervened personally to ensure that he remained in my S.S., for fanatical, granite conviction can override everything, even one’s genetic constitution. Moreover, I actually saw how Maurice, over time and with an iron will, killed off more and more Jewish elements within himself. A kind of mental self-Aryanisation – it was phenomenal! But loyal Fräulein Krömeier, still so very young, had not yet reached that point. Her awareness of these minor Jewish elements in her make-up was causing her resolve to waver. This had to be halted. Not least on account of the positive influence she was having on Herr Sawatzki, and vice-versa. The 1936 Olympic Games. It presented the perfect opportunity to conceal our aims.

  I was offended, however, by Fräulein Krömeier’s criticism of my life’s work. Or at least of my former life’s work. I decided to take the straight path. The path of eternal, unadulterated truth. The upstanding path of the Germans. In any case, we Germans cannot lie. Or at least not very well.

  “What bastards are you talking of?” I said, as calmly as I could.

  “The Nazis, of course!”

  “Fräulein Krömeier,” I began. “I don’t imagine that you’ll thank me for saying this, but you are mistaken in many things. The mistake is not yours, but it is a mistake all the same. These days people like to assert that an entire Volk was duped by a handful of staunch National Socialists, unfaltering to the very end. And they’re not entirely wrong; an attempt did in fact take place. In Munich, 1924. But it failed, with bloody sacrifices. The consequence of this was that another path was taken. In 1933 the Volk was not overwhelmed by a massive propaganda campaign. A Führer was elected in a manner which must be regarded as democratic, even in today’s understanding of the word. A Führer was elected who had laid bare his plans with irrefutable clarity. The Germans elected him. Yes, including Jews. And maybe even your grandmother’s parents. In 1933 the party could boast four million members, after which time we accepted no more. By 1934 the figure might otherwise have been eight million, twelve million. I do not believe that any of today’s parties enjoy anything approaching this support.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “Either there was a whole Volk full of bastards. Or what happened was not the act of bastards, but the will of the Volk.”

  Fräulein Krömeier looked at me in disbelief. “You … can’t say that! It wasn’t the will of the people that my nan’s family should die! Come off it, it was the idea of those who were found guilty. In, what’s it called, in … Nuremberg.”

  “Fräulein Krömeier, I beg you! This Nuremberg spectacle was nothing more than a deception, a way to hoodwink the Volk. If you are seeking to find those responsible you ultimately have two options. Either you follow the line of the N.S.D.A.P., and that means the man responsible is precisely the one who bears responsibility in the Führer state – i.e. the Führer and no-one else. Or you must condemn those who elected this Führer, but failed to remove him. They were very normal people who decided to elect an extraordinary man and entrust him with the destiny of their country. Would you outlaw elections, Fräulein Krömeier?”

  She looked at me uncertainly. “I might not understand as much about it as you do, no doubt you’ve studied and read it all, but you do think it’s bad, don’t you? What happened? Surely you would want to prevent it …”

  “You are a woman,” I said indulgently. “And in emotional matters women are very impulsive. This is nature’s way. Men are more objective; we do not think in categories like bad, not bad and suchlike. Our task is to deal with problems, and to identify, establish and pursue goals. But these questions do not permit of any sentimentality! They are the most important questions for our future. It may sound harsh, but we cannot look back at the past and complain; instead we must learn from it. What happened has happened. Mistakes are not there to be regretted; they exist so that they are not repeated. In the aftermath of a fire I will never be that man who spends weeks and months crying over an old house! I am the man who builds a new house. A better, a stronger, a more beautiful house. But in this I can only play the modest role which Providence has assigned to me. I can only be a small, modest architect for this house. The master builder, Fräulein Krömeier, the master builder is, and must always remain, the German Volk.”

  “And it mustn’t ever forget …” Fräulein Krömeier said, wagging her finger.

  “Exactly! It must never forget the strength that lies dormant within it. The capabilities it has! The German Volk can change the world!”

  “Yes,” she said. “But only for the better! We must never let the German people do anything dreadful again!”

  This was the moment when I realised just how much I cherished Fräulein Krömeier. For it is astonishing how some women can take a tortuous path and nevertheless end up at the right destination. Fräulein Krömeier had understood that history is written by the victors. And any positive appraisal of German deeds naturally requires German victories.

  “That, precisely that must be our goal,” I lauded her. “And we will attain it. If the German Volk prevails, then in one hundred, two hundred, in three hundred years you and I shall find only hymns of praise in our history books!”

  A faint smile darted across her face. “In two hundred years someone else’ll have to read it? You and I’ll be long gone by then.”

  “Well,” I said thoughtfully, “at least that is what we must assume.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, pressing a button on her keyboard. I knew this sound by now, the sound Fräulein Krömeier made when printing on the communal machine in the corridor. “I’d have loved to go on working here.”

  “And what if you didn’t tell your grandmother?”

  Her answer pleased me as much as it pained her: “No. I can’t lie to my nan.”

  But I could see to it that she receives special treatment, I thought instinctively, albeit only briefly. It is unrealistic to think one can arrange special treatment if one is lacking a Gestapo. Or a Heinrich Müller.

  “Please, don’t rush into anything,” I said. “I understand the position you’re in, but good secretaries are not exactly ten a pfennig. If you have no objections, I will personally have a word with your grandmother about your staying on in my office.”

  She looked at me. “I don’t know about that …”

  “I’ll be able to clear up any misgivings she may have, you mark my words,” I assured her. I could see the relief blossom on Fräulein Krömeier’s face.

  *

  Few people w
ould have embarked on such an undertaking. Personally, I have never had cause to doubt my powers of persuasion. And not only because I am aware of the rumour spread behind my back that whenever I am in the vicinity of Frau Goebbels you can hear her ovaries rattling or clattering, or whatever noise the soldiers’ crude humour deems appropriate. No, such mockery falls short. What we are talking about here is the self-assured charisma of the victor, the charisma of the man who precisely does not doubt. Used properly, it works just as well on the youngest women as on the eldest. The Jewesses were no exception in this regard; on the contrary, in their urge for assimilation, for normality, I found them even more susceptible. Why, Helene Mayer, our fencing Jewess at the Olympic Games, even gave the Nazi salute as she received her silver medal. Or if I think of those tens of thousands who believed they could feel like Germans just because they had spent some time shirking at the front in the previous war, some even lying their way to an Iron Cross.

  Anyone who can behave so deceitfully while his own racial comrades are being bludgeoned, while their shops are being boycotted and demolished, can be effortlessly hoodwinked sixty years later, particularly by – and I say this not out of any false vanity, but because it represents the profound truth – a seasoned expert in the strengths and weaknesses of this race.

  And to all you romantics and gullible souls, who imagine that these devious parasites possess an extraordinary astuteness to match their allegedly superior intelligence – well, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. Even back then, passing off a gas chamber as a shower room was not exactly the height of subtlety. And in this specific instance all it needed was the usual dose of polite courtesy in tandem with honest, yet effusive praise for the excellent work of her talented granddaughter. When I explained how indispensable Fräulein Krömeier was for my work, the glint in the old wench’s eye told me I would not need a new right-hand woman. As for any misgivings she might harbour regarding ideological matters, from that point on the lady only heard what she wanted to hear.

  But it helped, of course, that I did not visit her in full uniform.

  xxx

  I was nervous, but only slightly. I find there is something comforting about a mild flutter of nerves; it shows that I am focused. We had been working on this for four and a half months. I had outgrown Gagmez’s programme, as heretofore I had the Hofbräukeller; I had moved into a studio for my very own show, as heretofore I had into the Circus Krone. We learned that the advertising revenue from German industry had already reached a level comparable to the donations we were receiving shortly before my takeover of power in 1933. I was struck by the thrill of anticipation of what was to come, but I maintained my iron concentration. I checked myself once more in the looking glass. Immaculate.

  The opening titles played across the studio screen. They had been getting better and better; my esteem for former Hotel Reserver Sawatzki had only grown. The titles were introduced by the opening melody, a simple arrangement of bass notes. Old film recordings were played, such as my watching an S.A. parade in Nuremberg. Then some short sequences by Riefenstahl from “The Triumph of the Will”, over which there sang a most delightful voice: “Look who’s back, look who’s here.”

  Now they showed some good scenes from the Polish campaign. Stukas over Warsaw. Artillery in action. Guderian’s raging tanks. Then a few excellent sequences of me visiting troops at the front.

  “Look who’s back,” the sweet female voice sang. “But not for me.

  This was followed by a number of more recent recordings. They showed me strolling across the new Potsdamer Platz. Buying some rolls at the bakery and – a scene I treasured above all – patting the heads of two small children in a playground, a boy and a little girl. The youth is our future, pure and simple.

  “He hasn’t been round”, the voice lamented, “he hasn’t come by. I don’t understand it – why, oh why?”

  I had found this song extremely moving when I heard it for the first time; we had been meeting to decide on the title melody. If the truth be told I didn’t understand it either, what had happened to me. The images now showed me in the back seat of a black Maybach, on the way to the disused picture house in which we were recording. As I alighted and walked into the building, the camera behind me panning onto the large lettering outside announcing the name of my programme – “The Führer Speaks” – the woman sang the last bars of her song, skilfully spliced to finish in time with the title sequence: “Look who’s back, look who’s he-e-e-e-re.”

  I could have watched the opening titles again and again, but I had to be in position by no later than the bakery scene. As the song ended I would be sitting at my desk, receiving the applause with a serious expression. It was certainly more relaxed than at the Sportpalast, but the introduction lent it a good degree of solemnity.

  They had built me a wonderful studio, a vast improvement on the simple rostrum on Gagmez’s programme. It had been modelled on the Wolf’s Lair, as a compromise. My initial suggestion had been the Obersalzberg. Madame Bellini said that was too cheerful and cosy and proposed instead the Führerbunker. So we settled on the Wolf’s Lair. I even went there on a reconnaissance mission with a squad from Flashlight, out of curiosity more than anything, for I could have drawn the entire structure of the complex in detail, and from memory, including the guards. But Madame Bellini rightly insisted that the production team should visit the place to get their own impression.

  I had assumed that within their sphere of influence the Russians would have razed everything which bore witness to our past, but of course they didn’t stand a chance with the Todt Organisation’s reinforced concrete. They even had to leave the flak towers in Vienna standing because they were unable to blow them up. Of course they could have stuffed them to the rafters with T.N.T., but Tamms – that devil of a fellow – had cunningly placed the towers bang in the heart of residential areas. And they are still standing there, impressively sombre, and testament to the art of German fortification.

  The Poles, on the other hand, had turned the Wolf’s Lair into a sort of leisure park. It pained me to see the naïve indifference with which these clueless peasants dragged themselves around the site. The place lacks the necessary gravity; ultimately I prefer those documentation centres they’re building everywhere these days. True, such centres ideologically bombard the people who visit them, but the seriousness and aims of the movement are by and large accurately conveyed, including the Jewish problem. A little distorted by these do-gooders, of course, but only a little. As a precaution they still have to scribble everywhere how “inhuman” our policies were. Goebbels would have ordered them to cross that out forthwith. “If you have to refer to it specifically the text sounds weak. With a good text the reader can think nothing else but ‘That was inhuman’. Then, and only then, you see, he believes he has come to this conclusion himself!”

  Good old Goebbels. I adored his children; in the Führerbunker they were always my favourites.

  So, the Wolf’s Lair. They have a hotel there now, with a canteen that serves up Masurian food, and nearby is a shooting range for air rifles: a woeful set-up. If I had been in charge of the premises I would have used our original weapons: the Gewehr 43, the Pistole 35, the Luger, the Walther army pistol or even the P.P.K. – on second thoughts, maybe not the P.P.K., because whenever I think about the good old P.P.K. it gives me these bothersome headaches. Perhaps I should consult a doctor about it, but that is something I have found difficult of late. It was very practical back then, with Theo Morrell always on hand. Göring didn’t like him, but Göring was not an expert in all matters.

  I waited until the applause had died down completely, which was usually a sheer test of nerves between the broadcaster, the audience and myself, for I wanted absolute silence. I have succeeded in this with every audience so far.

  “My fellow Germans!

  We know that

  a nation lives

  off

  its land.

  Its land

  is its
>
  Lebensraum.

  But, in what

  state

  do we find

  this land

  today?

  The ‘chancellor’

  says:

  ‘Excellent.’

  Well, well.

  Once upon a time in this country

  the land could boast a healthy soil.

  Now the land is simply soiled.

  I put it to this ‘chancellor’,

  where is the healthy soil of yesteryear?

  I will have an eternal wait for my answer, for

  the ‘chancellor’ knows as well as I do

  that German soil is contaminated

  with the poison of big capital,

  of international finance!

  German land is full of rubbish,

  German children need the refuge of high chairs

  to sit in safety.

  The German man, the German woman

  the German family are fleeing as far as they can

  to skyscrapers;

  the small German dog,

  called Struppi

  or maybe Spitzl,

  he steps with his sensitive paw onto

  a bottle top,

  or laps at a dioxin and dies

  excruciatingly

  and with cramps!

  Poor, poor Struppi.

  And this

  is the land

  which our ‘chancellor’

  proclaims to be excellent.

  Our guest today is an expert on German soil.