Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

by Justine Saracen

  Having chosen to start with the Riefenstahl film and end with the fall of Berlin, I was forced to create a narrative arc over a period of eleven years and thus could only briefly mention the major events of World War II. Here I relied on the reader’s knowledge (or ability to ‘Google’) to appreciate the significance of each thumbnail sketch or reference, such as the Führer oath, the fall of Stalingrad, the Invasion at Normandy, the Auschwitz experiments, the surrender at Tangermünde, and the macabre events of the Führerbunker. For the latter, I drew heavily on the excellent German film Der Untergang, based on accounts by Hitler’s surviving secretary, Traudl Junge. For the fall of Berlin in general and the zoo, I relied on the richly detailed book by Cornelius Ryan, The Last Battle.

  Less known is the story of Yevgeny Khaldei, the photographer responsible for the iconic photo of the Red flag over the Reichstag. He was also active as a photographer at the Nüremberg trials, and I must add that there is no historical evidence that he was homosexual.

  Homosexuality was illegal before and after the Third Reich, due to paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code. This paragraph is responsible for the tragedy of the few homosexuals who survived the camps being immediately rearrested and incarcerated in post-war Germany. Ironically, Ernst Roehm, the head of the SA, was a notorious homosexual, and the early ranks of the Brownshirts were rife with it, until the organization was purged for political expediency.

  Another gray area is the role of the prestigious Charité hospital, which was efficient and innovative, treating wounded soldiers drawn right from the Berlin train station. But it was also tainted by several of its Nazi doctors who were involved in or benefitted from medical experiments in the concentration camps.

  Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück were camps near Berlin. I base my portrayal of them on various first-person accounts by homosexual prisoners, particularly The Men with the Pink Triangle by Heinz Heger. I could offer only the briefest sketches of camp life, but wanted to show how victims were regularly pressed into being victimizers. Not only was much of the cruelty in the camps meted out by prisoner wardens (Kapos), but the release of prisoners into the SS special regiment under the leadership of Oskar Dirlewanger created one of the most ruthless SS units of the war.

  One of the more extraordinary events at the end of the war was the rush toward the West by both civilians and German troops anxious to surrender to the Allies rather than the vengeful Russians. The desperate crossing at Tangermünde over the demolished bridge is poignantly shown on numerous YouTube videos.

  In the search for war criminals after the end of the war, a victim-criminal like Rudi would not have been arrested or even identified for months or years afterward, though Dirlewanger himself was already captured and beaten to death by his Polish guards in June 1945.

  Leni Riefenstahl, on the other hand, was arrested and escaped multiple times, then eventually tried and found not guilty of war crimes, though her career in filmmaking was over. Years later, she emerged as a still photographer of the Nuba and then an underwater photographer—in her 90s! She died at the age of 101.

  And finally, let me address the tiger/tyger motif. Belligerent forces and sports teams love to associate themselves with the big cats for their savage ruthlessness, and Blake, in his poem “Tyger, Tyger” does this as well. Under the influence of Nietzsche, the Nazis went a step further, identifying the “blond beast,” with the German Volk. They even had a line of tanks called “Tigers.” With our modern appreciation of endangered species, we view the tiger as more victim than savage beast, but in Blake’s terms, the tiger forms a useful icon of the ruthless ethic of the Nazi state. An icon that crumbled, of course, when it confronted an even more ferocious force, the Allied armies.

  The fact of WWII still puzzles us morally, or should. Was Nazism and its jungle ethic a unique expression of pure evil that came from elsewhere and must be kept outside, or does the tiger sleep within our own civilized consciousness? “Did he who made the lamb, make thee?” Blake certainly intended the answer to be “Yes.”

  Glossary of German Terms

  Alles raus! Schnell!: Everything out, quickly!

  Amis: German slang for Americans

  Abitur: Final exams taken at the end of secondary school

  Anschluss: Annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, 1938

  Arbeit Macht Frei: “Work makes (you) free” Sign over entrance of several German concentration camps

  Arbeitsdienst: Labor Service

  Aufseherin: Female concentration-camp guard

  Blockleiter: Lowest political official of the NSDAP, responsible for the political supervision of a neighborhood or city block

  Blockova: (Female) Prisoner in charge of the block or barrack

  Bratkartoffeln: Fried potatoes and onions

  Brigadeführer: SS rank roughly equivalent to a brigadier general

  Brownshirts: The SA, referring to their brown (surplus WWI) shirts.

  Bund Deutscher Mädel: German Girl’s Federation—female equivalent to the boys’ Hitlerjugend

  Comintern: Acronym for Communist International. Association of Communist parties of the world, founded by Lenin 1919

  Dirlewanger Regiment: SS penal regiment known for ruthlessness beyond that of the usual SS troops

  Einsatzgruppe: Ad hoc group/commando dispatched for a specific mission, often execution of civilians: partisans, Jews, commissars, etc.

  Einsatzkommando: Same

  Feldgendarmerie : German military police until 1945

  Feldwebel: German rank equivalent to US staff sergeant

  Gau: District/ territories designated uniquely by the NS party and monitored by a party leader. These disappeared with NS.

  Gauleiter: Party leader in charge of the Gau

  Glühwein: Hot mulled wine

  Götterdämmerung: Twilight of the Gods. Opera by Wagner

  Hauptsturmführer: Mid-grade level SS officer, equivalent to captain

  Hausmeister: Superintendent, custodian

  Hitlerjugend: Hitler Youth (ages 14–18)

  Kachelofen: Tile-enclosed wood-burning stove

  Kapo: A prisoner with lower administrative authority

  Knödel: Dumplings

  Kriegspost: Letter from the front, delivered by the army

  Kübelwagen: Volkswagen manufactured for battlefield use

  Lagerstrasse: Main avenue running the length of a camp

  Lazarettzug: Hospital train

  Leibwache: Personal bodyguards of the Führer.

  Loden: Sheep’s wool used without removing the lanolin.

  Mischling: Mixed breed. Person lacking fully Aryan ancestors

  NSDAP: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei Ultra-nationalist, fascist political party that originated as a reaction to the conditions of the surrender after WWI

  Obergefreiter: Wehrmacht rank equivalent to US senior lance-corporal

  Obergruppenführer: Waffen SS rank equivalent to US lieutenant general

  Panzerfaust: Explosive anti-tank warhead, operated by a single soldier

  Rechts um/Links um: Drill commands for right turn, left turn

  Reichsminister: Minister of the Reich (used also as a form of address)

  Reichsparteitag: Reich Party Congress/rally

  Schutzstaffel (SS): Protection unit—original function of SS

  Scharführer: Squad leader. Equivalent to sergeant or corporal NCO

  Schatz: Treasure. Common term of endearment

  Schmiss: Dueling scar on the face (usually deliberately inflicted)

  Soldbuch: Paybook. Detailed ID and record of service for Wehrmacht soldier

  Stahlhelm: Steel (battle) helmet

  Staatsoper: State opera

  Strassenbahn: Street car/tram

  Sturmabteilung (SA): Storm troopers. Paramilitary of NS party

  Sturmbannführer : SS rank equivalent to major

  Sturmmann: Trooper

  Tafelspitz: Bavarian/Austrian dish. simmered beef with horseradish

  Unteroffizi
er: NCO (occasionally Sergeant)

  Volk: Race, tribe, a culturally unified people. Mystical term for Germans as racially distinct from all others

  Volkssturm (Volksstürmer): Civilian home guard

  Warmer /Warmer Bruder: “Warm Brother”—Queer

  Wehrmacht: Federal military

  National Socialist : Der Angriff, Goebbels’ own newspaper

  newspapers: Der Völkische Beobachter, Das Schwarze Korps, Der Stürmer

  About the Author

  After years of “professing” at universities and writing for international literary journals, Justine Saracen began writing fiction. Trips to the Middle East inspired the Ibis Prophecy books, which move from Ancient Egyptian theology to the Crusades. The playful first novel, The 100th Generation, was a finalist in the Queerlit Competition and the Ann Bannon Reader’s Choice award. The sequel, Vulture’s Kiss, focuses on the first Crusade and vividly dramatizes the dangers of militant religion.

  Saracen then moved up a few centuries, to the Renaissance and a few kilometers to the north, to Rome. Sistine Heresy, which conjures up a thoroughly blasphemic backstory to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes, won a 2009 Independent Publisher’s Award (IPPY) and was a finalist in the Foreword Book of the Year Award.

  Mephisto Aria, a WWII thriller that has one eye on the Faust story and the other on the world of opera, was a finalist in the EPIC award competition, won Rainbow awards for Best Historical Novel and Best Writing Style, and won the 2011 Golden Crown first prize for best historical novel.

  Sarah, Son of God appeared in 2011. In the story within a story, a transgendered beauty takes us through Stonewall-rioting New York, Venice under the Inquisition, and Nero’s Rome. The novel won the Rainbow Awards First Prize for Best Transgendered Novel.

  Beloved Gomorrah, her work in progress, sheds a radical new light on the story of Lot and his daughters, and links it with the discoveries of a young artist and scuba diver in the Red Sea.

  Saracen lives in Brussels, a short flight or train ride to the great cities she loves to write about. Her favorite non-literary pursuits are scuba diving and listening to opera. She can be reached through www.justinsaracen.com, through FB justinesaracen, and Twitter as JustSaracen.

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