The Blood Flag

by James W. Huston

  “Who are you? Are you Israelis?”

  Florian responded, “No we are Germans. Germans and Americans.” The man pleaded, “What do you want with me? Why are you here?”

  “May we sit down? We want to ask you about something.”

  He looked at each of us again, with grave concern. His hair was somewhat unkempt, especially in the back. His shirt had stains on it, and his pants were wrinkled. He finally realized he didn’t have much choice and pointed to the couches in front of the television. He turned off the television and we sat down. Florian turned the television back on and sat with Patrick on the couch. I sat in the chair across the coffee table from Blick and he sat in the other chair. Jedediah stood ominously between us and the door. Florian asked Blick if he spoke English. He did. They switched.

  Florian began the conversation. “In 1945, just before Berlin came under attack by the Russian Army, you lived on a street near Hitler’s bunker.”

  Blick listened, his mouth slightly open. He said nothing.

  Florian continued. “And sir, of course you know about the Braunes Haus in Munich, and what was kept there?”

  He continued to stare without agreeing or acknowledging anything. He watched Florian, still not understanding where he was going.

  “There was a certain item that was kept there. It was in the place of honor. And it was kept there by a certain individual. Do you know what we’re talking about?”

  He nodded his head and spoke, “I know the house you mean. I know there were many things kept there. I think probably you mean the Blutfahne.” Florian and Patrick nodded. Patrick said, “Exactly. And that flag, and Otto Hessler who controlled it, was moved to Berlin in late 1944, to your street. And two of the people who lived on that street left before Berlin fell. You are one of them. We think you have the flag.”

  Jedediah crossed from where he stood by the door and said firmly, “It is time for the flag to take its rightful place. The Nazis are about to return to the international stage that they should have taken sixty years ago. Nazi groups from all over the world are going to gather in Germany to promote Nazi ideology throughout the world. To reestablish the supremacy of the Aryan race. We believe that the Blutfahne should be the centerpiece of this new movement. And we believe that flag is in your possession.”

  Blick looked shocked and disgusted. He looked down at the coffee table and adjusted his glasses, and then looked up at each of us. “You’re Nazis.” He shook his head as if encountering something that just kept coming back. “I was a Nazi. I was a member of the party. But it wasn’t anything that I believed in. In my position, you joined or you were sent to the front lines or worse. And for the right war, to defend Germany, I would gladly go to the front lines. But for him? No. So I was a member of the Nazi party and served in the army staff. I was smart and was promoted rapidly. I was twenty-four in 1945. My goal was to survive the war.”

  His hands shook as he removed a pack of French cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one. He did it quickly with the memorized movements of thousands of previous cigarettes. “So I don’t care about Nazism. I’m not waiting for it to rise again or start some new worldwide movement of hatred and murder.” The more emotional he got, the thicker his accent became. “And I don’t have your flag. I never saw it, except in a parade. So you’ve got the wrong person, and you can leave now.”

  We looked at each other and all formed the same conclusion. He was not our guy. Florian bent down and looked at him closely in an intimidating way. “If it is as you say, that you don’t have the flag, someone else from that street has it. Probably someone else who came to Argentina. Who else is here?”

  “I don’t know anyone from my street who came to Argentina. I am a lonely old man with no friends. I don’t know any other Germans who were on that street—there are other Germans here—but no one from my street.” His tone changed to one of contempt. “You will have to look elsewhere for your flag.”

  Florian stood up, looked at the rest of us and said, “Let’s go.”

  Jedediah held the door for us as we walked out. I stood outside the door as Jedediah stood there with the door open, holding it with his hand, looking back at the man with that intimidating stare, as if he was deciding whether to tear him apart or leave him alone. The German wouldn’t look at him. Jedediah stepped out and closed the door loudly behind us. He moved by us and rushed down the stairs. Florian, Patrick, and I looked at each other and started down the stairs wondering what Jedediah was up to.

  When we got out to the street and closed the door behind us, we looked around the dark, silent neighborhood and saw no one. Including Jedediah. As I was about to speak, Jedediah came out of the door behind us and down to the street. I said to him, “Where have you been?”

  “The basement.”

  “What were you doing down there?”

  “Phone line.”

  I thought for a second. “You cut the old man’s phone line?”

  Jedediah stared at me and said, “You think anybody’s going to really believe the three of you are Nazis? You look like cops. They’ll believe me. He did believe me. But he didn’t believe you. That’s why he had to give you his speech about how he wasn’t really a Nazi. How he didn’t really believe. That’s bullshit. He probably thinks we are Israelis, and we’re going in there to find out what he knows, and if he knows about the flag. He probably doesn’t even think we’re looking for it, but on the off chance he does, he probably knows who has it. And it’s probably the guy we’re going to see right now. The last thing we want is him calling that guy and warning him. So yeah, I cut his phone line.”

  “How did you know where it was?”

  “I told you I came here before. I told you I don’t walk into a situation without knowing everything. That’s probably the same thing you’ve been taught. But you don’t think like a criminal. You don’t think of cutting someone’s phone line on the way out so he doesn’t call somebody else. I do. And I did. And he won’t be calling our other friend.”

  “How do you know he doesn’t have a cell phone?”

  “I don’t know many eighty-nine-year-olds who operate cell phones. They don’t want the added expense. Probably doesn’t go out much, so he figures he can call whoever he wants from his home phone. Not tonight.”

  Florian looked distressed. “If it’s so obvious that we aren’t Nazis, how are we going to persuade anybody to give us the flag?”

  I looked at Jedediah and then answered Florian, “We just have to find the person who has it. Doesn’t matter if he believes us.”

  * * *

  The drive to Schullman’s house was less than ten minutes. Jedediah had been there too, and he showed us where to park so the car wouldn’t be heard. We started walking and noticed a few pedestrians returning from a late dinner. The neighborhood was nicer than Blick’s, and had trees on the sidewalk between the walking area and the streets. The streetlights cast long shadows.

  Schullman lived in the basement apartment of a three-story building. Lights were on behind the curtains, which were lined with old beige linen. There were lights on in the other apartments. It was approaching ten o’clock at night.

  I put out my hand for everyone to stop. I said softly, “Maybe we should approach this guy differently.”

  Florian replied quietly, “I think it’s a little late to change our approach. We have to go in now.”

  Jedediah, who had been looking at the neighborhood over our shoulders, said, “Like you said. Doesn’t matter what we say, we just have to get in there, ’cause either he has the flag or he doesn’t. And if he does, we’ll know it.”

  “Let’s go,” I said. We walked down the stairs to Schullman’s apartment. Florian knocked loudly. Once again, we could hear a television playing.

  The door opened and a tall, elegant man with white hair combed straight back stood staring at us.

  Florian said boldly,
“Guten Abend.”

  The old man looked at Florian and repeated the word back to him slowly, “Guten Abend. Was wollen Sie?”

  Florian continued, “Wir möchten ein Wort mit Ihnen reden und wir möchten Ihnen etwas anbieten.”

  The man looked at me, at Patrick, and then at Jedediah. He was startled by Jedediah, who had been standing behind Patrick. But once he had a clear view of Jedediah, his eyes widened.

  He said, “Habe ich eine Wahl?”

  Jedediah said in German, “Ja. Wir wollen Sie um einen Gefallen bitten, und wir haben einen Vorschlag, von dem wir denken, dass er für Sie von Interesse sein könnte.” Florian and Patrick were surprised. The old man looked at Jedediah, looked at his tattoos, and stepped back into his apartment to allow us in.

  There was an open book face down on the coffee table in front of an easy chair, which was facing the television. The lamp was on next to the chair. There was a faint lingering smell of spicy food.

  Jedediah asked him, “Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

  The man responded, “A little.”

  Jedediah switched to English. “I’d like my financier,” he said pointing to me, “to understand. He’s American.”

  The man looked at me and back at Jedediah. “As are you.”

  “Yes. And these gentlemen are my comrades from Germany.”

  He frowned. “We don’t use the word comrade. That was the Bolsheviks.”

  “Friends.”

  Schullman looked at me. “What about him, who’s he?”

  Jedediah said, “I have the dedication, but not the money. He has money.”

  “For what?”

  “For training, weapons, explosives, whatever we need.”

  I thought I saw a small smile break out on the old man’s face. He tried to look disinterested, but he was clearly intrigued. “And what is it you plan on blowing up?”

  “The things that need to be blown up,” Jedediah replied.

  “Who are you people and what are you doing here? And you, with all these tattoos,” he said gesturing with his hand to point at all of Jedediah’s ink at once.

  “We’re the ones carrying the Nazi torch. It was almost extinguished but we’re blowing on the coals. And you can help us.”

  “And what would make you say that?”

  Jedediah stepped closer to him, about an arm’s length away, and said, “Because you have the Blutfahne.”

  He recoiled slightly and looked at all of us quickly. “What makes you say that?”

  He’d given himself away. He started looking around the room. Florian jumped in. “We know that you lived near Otto Hessler’s house in Berlin. You left in the spring of 1945, before Berlin fell, and took the Blutfahne with you. We have come to ask you to come back to Germany, and to bring the flag with you.”

  Patrick said, “Come back with us to Germany. There is to be a meeting where the leaders of all the neo-Nazi groups around the world will come to unite in one great movement. There will never be a better time to use the Blutfahne than now. We’d like you to bring it back to restore it to Germany, to rejuvenate the movement.”

  Jedediah leaned closer to him. “I know you’ve kept it for a reason. Not for money, or you would have sold it a long time ago. You kept it for a purpose. We are that purpose.”

  The man looked at Jedediah with skepticism and a glimmer of something. Maybe hope. He considered, thinking of what all this meant. He said quietly, “If I did have it, what would you do with it?”

  “Either you could let us have it, or you can come with us,” Jedediah said. “We’d rather you come with us to Germany. There’s going to be a meeting, in a castle. All the leaders of all the neo-Nazi groups around the world will finally unite under a common creed, a common uniform, and common goals. We will share financing, intelligence, and weapons. And there’s no better way to unite that group than to bring the flag that started it all.”

  I added, “The world is changing. People are identifying with their own groups. Their own people. They’ve had enough of diversity and multi-culturalism.”

  The old man seemed comfortable. He smiled. “If I did have this flag and I wanted to go to Germany, who would pay for that?”

  “I would,” I said. “We would put you up in the best hotel, provide you with a car and driver, and you would be one of the featured people at the meeting. Will you come?”

  The man stood up tall, regaining lost pride. “I will show you what I have.”

  He was clearly intrigued by going to Germany as a returning hero. Then a cloud formed over his face. “Would the public know? If I brought the flag back to Germany, would we get past the police? Through customs?”

  I said quickly, “We have people everywhere. We will take you to Germany on a private jet, to a private airport in Munich. We will make sure you arrive at a certain time, and the men who will check your passport and your luggage will be sympathizers. You will have no problems.”

  He snapped his head to look around at me. “You can guarantee this?”

  “We can guarantee this.”

  Florian and Patrick nodded, probably wondering where this would all lead.

  He contemplated as he ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back.

  His watery blue eyes brightened. “Okay. I will get it.”

  He crossed over to the far corner of the room and knelt down beside the bookcase, which reached to the ceiling. The bottom section had sliding panels, and he slid the panels open. Inside were games, chessboards, and children’s toys. At the bottom of the stack was a large Tupperware container. He moved the games and toys off the Tupperware and slid it out from the cabinet. We all started moving toward the container sitting on the carpet, but he said, “Please stay back. I will pull it out and open it up for you.”

  He reached across the Tupperware container and began running his fingers around the lid. I could hear him pop the lid off and break the airtight seal. We all watched expectantly as he pulled the lid back. All I could see was a cloth of some kind, like a heavy towel made of linen, and folded on top. He put it aside.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “To help absorb the moisture and keep the flag in place.”

  I could see the solid red flag in the bottom of the container. I felt my heart skip as I gazed on the flag that I had hoped existed. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

  He pulled the container over toward the corner, and used the built-in bookshelf to steady himself. He reached underneath the flag and pulled his hand back, holding a Luger. He pointed it at each of us in turn. I stared at the handgun. It was rust free, freshly oiled, and in good condition. We all looked at each other wondering what his play was. His hand was steady. His face was red with energy, anger, and fear. He said in a hiss, “Take everything out of your pockets and put it on the coffee table. Everything!”

  I said to him quietly, “What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

  “I have no idea who you are. You come down here looking for the flag, claiming to be some neo-Nazis; I don’t know you from anybody. You could be the Bundeskriminalamt. I don’t know. And you bring this muscle with you,” he said, pointing his pistol at Jedediah. “To intimidate me. Well, I don’t scare. And you can’t have the flag.”

  He looked at the items on the coffee table. “Wallets too!” He picked up my wallet and looked through it. He pulled out the driver’s license. “Virginia?”

  “Yes. I told you I was American.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m an investor. I make a lot of money.”

  He tossed the wallet back onto the table. “Weapons? Are you armed?”

  I shook my head. “Why would we be armed to come and see you? We thought we were coming to see a friend.”

  “I don’t care what you thought, or what you tell me.” He continued going through the wallets when suddenly Jed
ediah moved faster than I’ve ever seen any person move, especially someone his size. In less than a second, he was on top of the old man and his huge right forearm slammed down on the man’s gun hand. I heard a crack, like a plate dropped onto a tile floor, as he dropped the gun and grabbed his arm.

  “You broke my wrist!”

  “You’re lucky I haven’t broken your neck. Nobody points a gun at me.” Jedediah bent over and picked up the Luger. He pulled the slide back to eject the cartridge, released the slide and looked at the bullets. They were new, clean brass. He stared at the old man angrily as he put the magazine in his pocket and tucked the Luger into his belt. He put his left hand back in his pocket, where it lingered for just a moment. Jedediah looked at the rest of us, and said, “I’m not taking him to Germany. And we’re sure as hell not paying him for the flag now; we’re just going to take it.” He reached down, put the lid back onto the container and picked it up, as the old man leaned against the bookcase holding his fractured wrist.

  Suddenly, I heard breaking glass in the back of the apartment and the whoosh of an explosive flame. I could see a reflection of a large flame in the glass of a picture in the hallway. Before I could do anything the window behind me broke and another Molotov cocktail flew into the apartment, smashing into the corner of the room where we stood. The gasoline splashed all over the bookcase while it was in the process of igniting. The room was filled with smoke and flames, and the back exit was cut off by the already burning kitchen.

  Jedediah screamed at Schullman, “We’ve got to get out of here!” The old man started to flee, holding his wrist. Suddenly he stopped and looked back. I watched him carefully as he went to the corner of the bookcase, still holding his broken wrist, and pushed on the edge of the bookcase with his good hand. It gave a little bit and then popped out. He swung it out, revealing a large wall safe. It looked like a sophisticated safe with a digital keypad for the combination. He quickly typed in six numbers, and the door popped open. It wasn’t a thick door, and would not withstand the fire that was about to consume the building. He grabbed cash and what appeared to be a passport folder out of the safe and stuffed them in his shirt. He reached in and grabbed a compressed plastic packing sleeve that had all the air pressed out of it and was sealed tight. It had two handles on it, like a stadium cushion. He grabbed it and began running out of the room. Jedediah put his hand on Schullman’s chest to stop him and took the item from him. He said loudly, “The real flag?” The man nodded as he began to panic. He pushed Jedediah’s arm aside and rushed for the door. Jedediah rushed right behind him as we all fled the room that was now nearly consumed in flames. We stumbled onto the street to avoid the flames.