The Blood Flag

by James W. Huston

  “If it is what you say it is, it will be at the very center of what we’re doing.” You could hear the enthusiasm in his voice. “It will be the rallying cry to restore the Aryan race to its rightful place, to rid Western Europe and North America of the scourge of Jews and mongrel Arab immigrants, to awaken our sedated cultures from the drug of multiculturalism, to stop the corrosion of society, to restore pride and duty and the inevitable supremacy of the white race.”

  He looked directly at me and crossed over from where he was standing. “You agree?”

  I nodded and stared back at him. “I agree. You have the Turks; we have everybody else, Mexicans, Arabs, Jews, running everything, and a society addicted to every bad thing you can imagine. It’s exactly like what Hitler saw in Vienna.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Ah. You know about Vienna.”

  “It’s what he saw. It’s what made him react like he did. It’s what made him write Mein Kampf.”

  He stared at me without speaking. Finally, he said, “You have read this?”

  “Of course.”

  “Really? When did he write it?”

  “When he was in prison, after the beer hall putsch.”

  “And how did he write it?”

  “Mostly dictated it to Hess.”

  “Excellent. But I still don’t know you.” He studied me. “I have been aware of Mr. Thom for a long time, but not you.”

  “When you invited him, you invited me. He is the face of the organization. I’m behind the scenes. The one with the money, giving orders and direction. If he’s going to come here and commit the Southern Volk to anything, then I’ll be there.”

  Eidhalt was troubled. “He never mentioned this before.”

  “I hadn’t authorized him to. There’s no need for me to be known publicly. I only show myself when it’s absolutely necessary. And if you think you’re going to be telling the Southern Volk what to do, even indirectly, then you’ll have to deal with me.”

  He drew closer. I could smell his breath. He said almost in a whisper in his German accent, “But we investigated the Southern Volk. I’ve been investigating them for months. Your name has never been mentioned.”

  “That is how I like it. Your name was not known until recently. You and I, we know when it is time to take the stage. I will never be on the stage, just in the background. And you think Mr. Thom,” I said looking at Jedediah, “you think he could have come up with the idea of die Blutfahne on his own and then found it in Argentina?”

  “That is why I expect that it’s a fake.”

  “It’s not a fake. I went with him to Argentina.”

  “And what is the name of the man who had the Blutfahne in Argentina?”

  “Schullman. He lived in a basement apartment in Buenos Aires. He tried to give us a fake, but we fire bombed his apartment with all of us in it expecting that he would not let the true flag go up in flames. When the fire started, he went to a hidden drawer in his bookcase and extracted the real flag.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No. He escaped the fire, but everything in his apartment was destroyed.”

  “But you got the flag?”

  “Yes. And it’s within a hundred meters of us now.”

  “Where?”

  “Nearby here. If we go forward, we will show it to you.”

  He stepped back, looked around the cemetery, and put his hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket. He looked at the gravestone, and then back at us. “How did you learn that Herr Schullman might have the flag?”

  “You Germans are very good record keepers. I found the names of everyone who lived on Hessler’s street in the fall of 1944 and spring of 1945. It was last seen in October of 1944, of course, but where did it go? My theory was one of the Nazis who knew Hessler took it out of the country to preserve it. Turned out I was right. We traced him to Argentina. We weren’t sure he had it, but we had it narrowed down to two or three names. He was the second one we visited.”

  “Let’s see it.”

  I couldn’t tell if he believed what I was saying or if he was going to simply reserve judgment. It didn’t matter. “First let’s make sure we understand each other. If it is the true Blood Flag, this will be what brings the Southern Volk to your meeting. Yes?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  “And we will get it authenticated by DNA.”

  “Yes, but how?”

  “You will see. If it goes as planned, are we in agreement?”

  “Yes.”

  “Jedediah, show him where it is.”

  Jedediah turned without saying anything, and walked down the path. Jedediah turned off the path and walked on the grass over to an elaborate gravesite that was surrounded by an iron fence that was six feet high and had intricate scrolls and ornamentation. It had a gothic feel to it and stood by itself, with no other gravesite closer than fifteen feet from the fence. Jedediah swung open the gate and stepped inside. I did likewise and Eidhalt and his man followed. I looked to see if there was a visible microphone, but saw nothing. No signs of any disturbance. Jedediah asked, “See anybody else?”

  We all shook our heads. Jedediah hesitated then looked up toward the top of the elaborate stone structure, over the grave of Franz von Lossow. The enclosure was large enough to be a family burial site, but it was only for one man. Lived from 1895 to 1917. Died in The Great War. While some of the gravestones had some religious indication, a cross or inscription or an occasional angel, von Lossow’s had none. The three of us watched as Jedediah walked under the lichgate and climbed up onto the first level of the altar tomb. He reached up into the black night as high as he could and pulled the worn suitcase off the top of the marble structure. He held it in his right hand and stepped down.

  Eidhalt couldn’t take his eyes off the suitcase. Jedediah looked at me, “You got your flashlight?”

  I pulled it out of my pocket and directed it at the suitcase. Jedediah opened the two over-center clasps and pushed the lid up and back. My light illuminated the dark red cloth of the Blood Flag. It was folded, but still had a lot of bulk. It was made of very high-quality cotton that had maintained most of its bright red color for the past ninety years. This wasn’t just one of the millions of Nazi flags that had been made during the thirties and forties, this was the Nazi flag.

  Eidhalt said, “Take it out.”

  Jedediah looked up at him from his kneeling position over the flag. “I don’t want to damage it.”

  “Take it out!” Eidhalt yelled.

  Jedediah reached in and gently lifted the entire flag. He unfolded it carefully and held it up above his head with his arms spread wide so that the flag fell down in front of him. Even with his arms fully extended, the flag was too large to not bend gently and touch the ground. I had to admit that just looking at it gave me the chills. The dark red contrast against the black swastika angled aggressively inside the white circle in the middle of the flag. The flag looked like it was suspended from a cross-beam pole on this massive gravestone. Eidhalt approached it and knelt down by the foot of the flag. I approached with him. He looked at me and took the flashlight out of my hand. “I have looked at every photograph that exists of this flag. I know where the stains should be. You see here, and here,” he said pointing, “it’s hard to see the color because of the red flag, but as you can see, it’s darker. Almost brown. These stains are in exactly the right place.”

  He stood up and shined the flashlight on the entire flag again. He looked at the edges and felt the cloth. “Either this is die Blutfahne or it’s an amazing fake.” He glanced at his man, who nodded in agreement.

  I replied, “Schullman tried to give us a fake, but we think we have the real one. I suppose he could have had two fakes, but why would he care enough to almost die in a fire to recover a fake?”

  He smiled with an animal-like smile. “Nicely done. Did he re
sist?”

  “Let’s just say we have the flag and he doesn’t.”

  I looked up at Jedediah. “You can come down.”

  Jedediah folded the flag in half and jumped down to the bottom of the stone. He began refolding the flag like a map, honoring its pre-existing creases.

  I said, “We have to be absolutely sure it’s the right one so you can use it for the meeting. As the rallying point. But we also want to know, because the Southern Volk now owns it.”

  Eidhalt was suddenly furious. “You’re going to keep it?”

  “We went to Argentina to get it. We own it. We brought it here because you invited us to your meeting. We want to come, and you asked us to do something to impress you. You asked everybody to do something you’d hear about. Not to give you anything. So it’s here, and you can use it at the meeting. Rally the entire Nazi movement around the world. But it’s ours, always will be.”

  He turned and faced me directly. He said in a low whisper. “If you do not give me this flag, you will not come to the meeting. You will not be part of the future of National Socialism. You will be a memory. A relic. A bunch of southern rednecks who can do nothing without me.”

  I stepped forward slightly. “We have the flag. We will get Friedl’s DNA and we don’t give a shit whether you’re involved. We’ll tell the whole world we have it and that history is now on the side of the Southern Volk, the new worldwide leader of Nazism. We’ll set up our own meeting. We’ll invite everybody in the world to the United States. We’ll have all the freedom we need to operate. We don’t have the laws you have in Germany. In the United States we can wear swastikas all day long. We have the First Amendment. Something you’ll never have. We can do anything we want and we can say anything we want. We can scream all the racist and anti-Semitic things we want. We can rally everybody to the international cause with complete impunity. And we will tell them that they can come and do what Hitler did at the party convention in Nuremberg in 1936. They can bring their flags, their banners, and touch them to the Blood Flag!” I watched his face as he tried to contain his anger. “I can buy a new thousand-acre ranch in Idaho or Wyoming tomorrow, and give it to the cause. We can build a massive compound, with buildings, dormitories, gunnery ranges, a chow hall, a movie theater—whatever we want—for anyone we invite. They can stay for weeks. We can train. We can train with weapons. Real weapons. Fifty-caliber sniper rifles, M4s, AK-47s, bulletproof vehicles, and a driving track to learn evasive driving. We can have night scopes, night vision goggles, GPS tracking devices, whatever our military has, we can have—as long as it’s not fully automatic. And it’s all legal in America, unlike Germany. We’ll teach them urban combat tactics and the use of explosives. Molotov cocktails, dynamite, and fertilizer. In fact, that is our plan. You were part of that plan, because you’re going to do the first thing—unify the international movement. But we plan to train them, and lead the armed side of this struggle. Something that you can’t possibly do here because everything is illegal in Germany. But everything is legal in America. Isn’t it a beautiful country?

  “So you decide. Tell me how you’re going to play it. If you try to cut us out, it’s the last time you’ll see us or the flag. And I’ll make sure you’re no part of the rise of the Nazi Army that is about to occur.” I paused. “So, if you think we need you, we don’t. We can do everything alone that you plan on doing, and probably better. You have money, so do I. Maybe more than you. And I don’t have the notoriety that you do. I’m not in the papers like you have been. I haven’t bought a come-and-get-me castle. And people will come to the United States. They’ll come to my new ranch. So don’t push me. I’ll work with you. We’ll work together if we can. But if we can’t,” I shrugged, “I don’t really give a shit.”

  Eidhalt watched Jedediah finish folding the flag and put it back in the suitcase. He said, “You have the flag, and it should be at the meeting. Maybe our next meeting will be in the United States, and we can organize it together. But for now, we need to know if we have—if you have—the actual flag. We must get it tested.” Eidhalt hesitated, nearly choking on his words. “We want to work with you.”

  I said, “The best DNA lab in the world is in the United States. But I don’t want to go back there right now. And I don’t want to send the flag back there. So tell us whether you know if there is a place we can do it here. Right away. Because we have to get this done before the meeting.”

  “The German laboratories here in Munich are among the best. Everyone knows that. If you’re confident they can get a sample off the flag, we can get it identified. But are you sure about getting a DNA sample from an old skeleton?”

  I nodded. “I’m sure. We’re going to take the skulls and get them all tested, to make sure we get Friedl’s.”

  “Take what skulls?”

  “From Friedl’s family. I pointed back to the grave. “There are four names on the gravestone. We’re going to take them all.”

  “When?”

  Jedediah closed the suitcase and picked it up. He turned and walked toward me and said, “Right now.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  We walked directly to the gravesite. Eidhalt and his man stared at the enormous stone with the large letters FRIEDL on it. “His grave was to be unmarked,” he said. “Leave it to ignorant Americans to look anyway,” he said.

  Jedediah walked behind the gravestone and pulled out shovels and a pick ax. He tossed one of the shovels to the other German, looked around, and slammed his shovel into the dirt. He smashed it with his foot, then dug up a foot of dirt and threw it over his shoulder. He stopped, took off his turtleneck, and was wearing just his tanktop T-shirt.

  Eidhalt frowned as he saw the tattoos in the dim light.

  Jedediah looked at him and didn’t respond. He looked at the other German and said, “Dig.”

  Eidhalt said, “Do we have time to do this?”

  Things were out of his control and he didn’t like it.

  “One hour.” Jedediah responded as he smashed his shovel into the ground again and tossed another pile of dirt. The ground was soft and moist and turned over easily. The other German tried to keep up, but was contributing a quarter of the total effort. Jedediah was like a human steam shovel. His massive muscles were visible in the moonlight. They glistened with sweat as he grunted and tore through the dirt.

  A little over an hour later Jedediah and the other German were deep enough that only their heads showed above the hole. The German was exhausted. Jedediah kept digging. His shovel hit something hard. His muffled voice called out from below, “We’re there.”

  He scraped his shovel on top of a casket. He said, “Two caskets side by side. The other two must be underneath. Let me get these two first . . . let me see if I can . . . open it from the side. Otherwise I’ll need the pick ax.”

  I pointed my flashlight on the caskets as the German climbed out. Jedediah knelt on one casket with his hands in between the two. The latches faced each other and were in the middle of the grave. He tried to pull up the lid of the opposite casket without luck. He looked up at me and squinted in the light. “Hand me the crowbar.”

  I handed down the three-foot-long crowbar. He placed it under the edge of the lid and stomped on it with his booted foot. The lid popped open, revealing the deteriorated white satin lining and a skeleton. Pieces of clothing and hair lay around, remnants of what had been there more than ninety years before. Jedediah looked up at us, grabbed the shovel, and slammed it into the skeleton at the base of the skull, severing the spine. He took the burlap bag hanging out of the back of his jeans and tossed the skull into the bag. He slammed the lid closed on that casket, went to the end, then grabbed under the lip and pulled it until it was standing upright. He then leveraged it over until it was standing on top of the other one. I knew he was strong, but to watch him exercise his nearly superhuman strength with such ease and fluidity was remarkable. He handled the casket—
which had to weigh two hundred pounds—like it was a bushel of corn. He took his crowbar out, and pried the lid open on the next one underneath the one he’d already opened. I illuminated the inside of the casket with my flashlight while standing on the edge of the gaping hole.

  The inside of this casket was much less luxurious. It was wood-lined, probably with spruce, as it showed no evidence of bugs. The skeleton looked a little shorter than the previous one. Probably one of the females, but we weren’t taking any chances. Jedediah lifted the skeleton out of the casket, grabbed the spine with one hand and the skull with the other, and tore it off. He dropped the skeleton back into the casket and put the skull into the sack.

  I glanced at Eidhalt who was nearly falling into the hole with fascination and amazement. Jedediah moved the first two caskets back to where they started, handling them like they were empty boxes, and pried open the lid of the third. He didn’t even hesitate. He slammed the shovel into the spine again. The skull flew forward and hit the front of the casket. Jedediah tossed it into the sack with the other two skulls, slammed the lid shut, wrestled the casket up, and opened the fourth. This was the largest skeleton of all. Probably the father, or Friedl himself. He smashed his shovel down, severing the spine of the fourth buried Friedl. The skull came free but the shovel continued through the bottom of the casket. The metal blade was completely out of sight. Jedediah looked surprised. He removed the skull and tossed it into the bag where it clicked audibly into the other three, then pulled his shovel back out. He closed the lid on the casket, and pulled it until it stood upright. He maneuvered around it and moved it to the other end of the hole, and looked down to where his shovel had gone through. We could see what appeared to be metal underneath the dirt. He got on his knees and began moving the dirt aside to reveal what appeared to be an aluminum floor for the grave plot. He could see the hole his shovel had made, but could not see what was on the other side of the aluminum. He looked up at us. We stared at him and the aluminum with puzzlement.