Look Who's Back (18 page)

“I can hardly believe it’s only been a few weeks since I picked you up off the ground outside my kiosk,” the newspaper vendor said.

“The rules are the same as they were sixty years ago,” I said. “They never change. The only difference is that there are fewer
Jews to worry about. And so the Volk is in better shape. By the way, I haven’t thanked you properly. Did they … ?”

“Don’t worry,” the newspaper seller said. “We came to an agreement. I’ve been looked after.” Then his portable telephone rang. He lifted the device to his ear. I picked up a copy of
Bild
and leafed through it. The newspaper projected a combination of anger and hatred, starting with reports of political ineptitude and building a picture of a clueless, but ultimately benign matron chancellor, shuffling awkwardly through a horde of obstructive dwarfs. Meanwhile, virtually every political decision “legitimated” by democracy was debunked as poppycock. This admirable smear-sheet reserved especial venom for the idea of European union, which it found utterly repellent. But what I liked best of all was its subtle mode of operation. For example, I found the following in a humorous column between jokes about mothers-in-law and cuckolded husbands:

A Portuguese, a Greek and a Spaniard go into a brothel. Who pays?

Germany.

Very, very funny. Of course Streicher would have commissioned a drawing to accompany it, portraying three unshaven, oily southerners pawing at an innocent little thing, while the honest German worker grafts away in the background. On balance, however, that would have spoiled the joke’s subtlety.

Otherwise, a colourful hotchpotch of criminal tales filled the pages, followed by that category of reporting which has always been the most effective form of appeasement – sport. And then a collection of photographs showing famous people looking ancient or ugly, a full-blown symphony of envy,
resentment and malice. For this very reason I would have been pleased if a brief notice of my appearance had found its way into these pages. But the newspaper seller had been correct not to include
Bild
in his pile; it made no mention of me. I lowered the paper when he put his telephone away.

“That was my son,” he said. “The one whose shoes you didn’t like. He asked whether you were the bloke from my kiosk. He saw you. On his mate’s mobile. He said you were absolutely unreal.”

I looked at the newspaper vendor blankly.

“He thinks you’re brilliant,” the man translated. “I dread to think what kinds of films they’ve got on their mobiles, but you can be sure they don’t watch anything they find dull.”

“The sensibilities of young people are unadulterated,” I declared. “For them there is no good or bad, they merely think instinctively. If a child is raised correctly, he will never come to make a bad decision.”

“Do you have children?”

“Unfortunately not,” I said. “I mean, rumours were occasionally spread by those with an interest in the matter that there were some ‘off the record’, as we say in our neck of the woods.”

“I get it,” the newspaper seller said cheerfully, lighting a cigarette. “Was it a question of maintenance, then?”

“No, they wanted to ruin me, turn me into a laughing stock. Since when has it been wrong or dishonourable to give a child the gift of life?”

“Try telling that to the ultra conservatives.”

“Agreed, one must always take the simple people into
account. You can concoct whatever arguments you like, but for many people it will be one step too far. Himmler tried it once, in the S.S. He wanted to institute the same rights for legitimate and illegitimate children, but it didn’t work, not even there. Regrettably so – the poor children. Small boys, little girls, they suffer disapproving glances, they get teased, the other children dance around them, singing cruel songs. And this is damaging to the national spirit, the sense of community. We are all of us Germans, the legitimate as well as the illegitimate. I always say: Children are children, whether in the cot or in the trenches. Of course, one must provide for them. But only the most despicable Schweinehund would do a runner.”

I put
Bild
back in its rack.

“So, how did it end up?”

“Nothing. It was pure slander, of course. And nothing ever came of it.”

“There you go,” the newspaper seller said, sipping his tea.

“I have no idea whether the Gestapo took the matter in hand at any stage, but I’m sure that won’t be necessary anymore.”

“Probably not. I mean, you brought the press into line, didn’t you?” he said, laughing, as if he had cracked a joke.

“Precisely,” I nodded. Then “The Ride of the Valkyries” rang out.

Fräulein Krömeier had set it up for me. After we brought the computer into service, we established that the quartermaster had also supplied me with one of those portable telephones. The device was an unbelievable affair, moreover one could use it to navigate this Internetwork, and even more efficiently than
with the mouse tool – one steered with one’s fingers. I realised at once that I held in my hands a masterpiece of Aryan creative genius, and all it took was a few swipes of the finger to discover that – of course – the superlative Siemens company had been responsible for the technology which brought this miracle to pass. Fräulein Krömeier had to undertake the finger movements for me, as I was unable to decrypt the visual display without spectacles. I wanted to sign the whole thing over to her; after all, the Führer cannot concern himself with too much bric-a-brac, that is what the secretariat is for. Quite correctly, however, she reminded me that I could only be reliant on her labour for half of each day. I rebuked myself for having become too dependent on my party machine. Finding myself again at square one, I would have to confront this contraption myself, for better or for worse.

“Any particular ringtone?” Fräulein Krömeier had asked me.

“Certainly not,” I replied sardonically. “After all, I don’t work in an open-plan office!”

“So, I’ll just give you like, the normal one?”

I then heard a noise which sounded like a drunken clown playing the xylophone. Over and over again.

“What the devil is that?” I asked, horrified.

“That’s your phone?” Fräulein Krömeier said, adding, “Mein Führer!”

“And it sounds like
that
?”

“Only when it rings.”

“Switch it off! I don’t want people taking me for an imbecile!”

“That’s why I asked you?” Fräulein Krömeier said. “D’you prefer this one?”

More clowns playing diverse instruments. “That’s appalling,” I groaned.

“But I thought you didn’t care what people thought of you?”

“My dear Fräulein Krömeier,” I said. “Personally I consider short lederhosen to be the most masculine trousers a man can wear. And when, one day, I am once again commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, I will supply an entire division with these short trousers. And woollen stockings.”

At this point Fräulein Krömeier made an outlandish noise and wiped her nose.

“I know,” I continued. “You do not hail from southern Germany; you cannot understand my way of thinking. Just wait until this division is standing there, on parade, then it will become clear that all those jokes about leather shorts are baseless. But – and now I am coming to the point – on my path to power I was forced to acknowledge that industrialists and statesman do not take politicians in these trousers seriously. It is one of my greatest regrets to have abandoned the short trousers, but I did it because it served my cause and thus the cause of the German Volk. And let me tell you, I did not relinquish these wonderful trousers only for a telephone set to render my sacrifice worthless and leave me looking like a total moron! So don’t just stand there; find me a sensible ring.”

“That’s why I like, asked you?” Fräulein Krömeier sniffed, putting away her handkerchief. “I can leave it so it’s like a normal phone? But I can get you any other sound you like, like. Words, sounds, music …”

“Music, too?”

“If I don’t have to play it myself. It would have to be like, on a … a … record!”

So then she set up “The Ride of the Valkyries” for me.

“Good, isn’t it?” I said to the newspaper seller, confidently raising the device to my ear “Hitler here!”

I could hear nothing but Valkyries riding forth.

“Hitler!” I said. “Hitler here!” And when the Valkyries continued to ride I tried “Führer headquarters!” Just in case the caller was in shock at having got through to me personally. Nothing happened save for the Valkyries getting louder. By now my ear was truly hurting.

“HITLER HERE,” I screamed. “FÜHRER HEADQUARTERS!” It felt as if I were back on the Western Front in 1915.

“Press the green button!” the newspaper seller said plaintively. “I can’t stand Wagner!”

“Which green button?”

“That thing on your phone,” he cried. “You have to swipe it to the right.”

I looked at the machine, where indeed I could see a green slider. I pushed it to the right, the Valkyries fell silent, and I shouted, “HITLER HERE! FÜHRER HEADQUARTERS!”

Nothing. The newspaper vendor rolled his eyes, took my hand together with the telephone and gently guided it to my ear.

“Herr Hitler?” I could hear the voice of Hotel Reserver Sawatzki. “Hello? Herr Hitler?”

“Yes,” I said. “Hitler here!”

“I’ve been trying to get hold of you for ages. Frau Bellini wanted you to know that the company is really happy!”

“Well,” I said, “that is nice. But I had expected somewhat more.”

“More?” Sawatzki asked, confused.

“My dear Herr Sawatzki,” I said dismissively, “three newspaper articles are all well and good, but we do have greater goals …”

“Newspaper articles?” Sawatzki roared. “Who’s talking about newspaper articles? You’ve made it onto YouTube. And you’re getting endless hits!” Then he lowered his voice and said, “Just between you and me, some people here wanted to drop you right after the show. I’m not going to name names. But just take a look! Young people love you!”

“The sensibilities of young people are unadulterated,” I said.

“And that’s why we’ve got to produce some new stuff straight away,” Sawatzki said excitedly. “They’re extending your slot. They want to do some short clips, too! You have to come to the office right away! Where are you?”

“At the kiosk,” I said.

“Great,” Sawatzki said. “Stay right there, a taxi’s on its way!” He hung up.

“So?” the newspaper seller asked. “Good news?”

I held out my telephone. “Can you use this to get to something which goes by the name of U-Tube?”

W
hat had happened was this. By means of some technical appliance, someone had taken a recording of my appearance on Gagmez’s programme and inserted it into the Internetwork, in a place where everyone could exhibit their short films. And everybody could watch whatever they wanted, without being dictated to by the Jewish gutter press. The Jews could offer up their pitiful efforts here too, but one could see directly what was happening: the Volk was watching my appearance with Gagmez over and over again. You could tell this from a figure beneath the film clip.

Now, I do not place undue faith in statistics. I have had sufficient experience of party comrades and industrialists to know that careerists and other shady characters lurk everywhere, always happy to lend a hand when they can present “figures” in a positive light. They embellish them, or compare them with another figure which makes their own look very attractive, while suppressing a dozen other statistics which would reveal a far less favourable reality. For this reason I decided to address the task myself, and I checked the figures of some Jewish submissions. I even bit the bullet – one cannot be squeamish in these matters – and looked at the figures for that
Chaplin film, “The Great Dictator”. Yes, the number of visitors here stretched into seven figures, but one had to put this into its proper context. After all, Chaplin’s cheap and shoddy effort was more than seventy years old, which translated into approximately 15,000 visitors per year. Still not an inconsiderable sum, but only on paper, of course. For one would have to assume a gradual decrease in interest. It is only natural that human curiosity for current events should be greater than that for dusty old goods. Especially in a case like this: a black-and-white production, whereas people these days are used to technicolour. One may thus assume that this film must have attracted most of its Internetwork visitors in the 1960s and ’70s. These days there could only be around a hundred per year at most, very likely film students, some rabbis and other such “specialist viewers”. Over the past three days I had easily surpassed this figure by a thousand times or more.

I found it all very interesting, for one specific reason in particular.

Until that point my most positive experiences with public enlightenment and propaganda had been with methods considerably different from those employed today. I had worked with columns of S.A. Brownshirts, who waved flags from the backs of lorries as they drove through the city, smashing their fists into the faces of Bolshevist Red Front fighters, cracking their skulls with clubs and, with my full support, also trying to kick some sense with their jackboots into these bone-headed communists. Now I observed that evidently the mere attraction of an idea, a speech, could induce hundreds of thousands to watch and engage in intellectual debate. In truth, this was very
hard to understand. It was even plain impossible. Something was niggling away at me, a hunch, if not a fear, so I immediately called Sensenbrink. He was in great spirits.

“Have you seen the figures?” he rejoiced. “You’ve just hit 700,000, and the numbers are going north all the time. It’s madness. You’re out of the ballpark.”

“Indeed,” I said, not quite understanding everything he had said. “But I find your delight quite overblown. It can’t possibly make any sense!”

“What? What do you mean? You’re our golden goose, old chap! Believe you me, this is just the launchpad. It’s a game changer, a paradigm shift.”

“But you still have to pay all the people!”

“Which people?”

“I was myself in charge of propaganda for a while. And I know that to bring 700,000 people over to your side you need 10,000 men. And they have to be fanatical.”