Origins: The Reich (27 page)

In the life
of a soldier some days are better than others.  A good day consisted of taking an enemy position without casualties and celebrating like it was your last day on earth with your comrades.  When your position got overrun and you had to leave behind your fallen brothers, those were the bad days.  For Valnor and his men who were rapidly advancing through southern Poland towards Berlin, Germany, it had been a string of very good days for all of them.

Spirits were high as they handed their German adversaries one defeat after another.  The red tide was rising and spilling into German territories that contained riches the Soviet soldiers had never seen before in their lives.  Silver dinnerware sets, crystal chandeliers, gold jewelry, fashionable suits and dresses.  The plunder was extraordinary.  In fact, the overwhelming sentiment of the men was ‘why did these people attack us?  They have everything and we had nothing.’  It had been a good few months, but Valnor had a feeling this day would be one of the worst.

As Valnor’s men marched westward through an unremarkable stretch of farmland, the first ominous omen was the change of scent in the air.  A shift of wind from the northwest brought with it an indescribably foul stench of death and decay.  Knowing that foul breeze originated from his target, Valnor ordered his men to follow the smell, which grew more pungent as they drew closer to the source.

Ten minutes later, Valnor was summoned to the most forward position where his infantry had made contact with some Germans.  He arrived expecting to find a brigade of German soldiers dug in with machine gun nests firing away.  Instead, he saw his senior officer speaking with a group of four men wearing tattered and stained clothing with the thick horizontal striping of a prison uniform.  The full grown, emaciated men could not have weighed more than eighty pounds.

“They claim to be German political prisoners who escaped from a facility located about a mile west of here,” the battalion leader reported.

Valnor eyed one of the suspects and noticed under all the dirt and grime on his clothing a faded gold star with six points sewn over his left breast.  “I believe them.  Those gold stars on their chest, they’re just like the stars that the Polish army found on prisoners in the Majdanek camp when they liberated it a few weeks ago.”

“These men claim the German guards just up and left several days ago as we were approaching, but why wouldn’t we see more of them running for freedom?” the battalion leader asked, suspecting it might be some sort of trap.

“The other prisoners probably can’t,” Valnor replied.  “Look at them.  It’s the middle of winter and they’re wearing nothing but a paper-thin prison uniform.  No coats, no gloves or boots, and they’ve obviously been starved half to death.  It’s amazing they can find the strength to walk ten feet, let alone a mile.”

“Give them something to eat and then have them show us the way to this prison camp,” Valnor ordered.

A half hour later, Valnor found himself leading a group of two hundred soldiers through the front gates of a prison camp named Auschwitz.  The nameplate said work camp, but the place clearly served a darker purpose.

When they opened the gates, Valnor and his men saw one barrack, then the next, on and on for a hundred barracks.  They saw people, just a few dotting the compound.  The first men they found outside the camp were thin and obviously malnourished, but these prisoners were on a whole other level of suffering and starvation.  They were nothing but skin draped over a set of frail bones.  None of them moved; they could not even manage to turn their heads.  They simply stood like dead people with a hollowed out body and soul.

One of Valnor’s officers shouted in Russian, “The Soviet Army liberates you!” but they did not understand the language.  Valnor repeated the phrase in German, which did elicit a response. 

Three walking skeletons nearby collapsed to the ground in tears while a man and woman, completely naked in the freezing cold, fell to Valnor’s feet and tried kissing his boots saying, “Is it true?  Is it real?”

Valnor removed his overcoat and draped it over the groveling woman.  He quickly unfastened his long-sleeved uniform shirt and gave it to the man.  Now standing there in his undershirt with the frosty wind nipping at him, Valnor began to understand the misery of these people’s lives.

Valnor turned to his chief adjutant and said, “Bring the army here; all of it.  I want every single man from Army Group Center to walk through this camp and know what sort of enemy we’re facing.  Have every last man go from barracks to barracks.  They will bear witness to the extreme depravity of which those German aggressors are capable. As God as my witness, we will revisit this barbarism upon them tenfold.”

“Yes sir,” the officer acknowledged and departed the liberated camp to enact the order.

Others under Valnor’s command, including officers, pleaded with him to let them leave the awful site, but their requests were denied.  Instead, he ordered them to accompany him while they inspected the barracks.  The first one they came to had a sign over the door ‘damas’ – women.

When Valnor opened the door, all he saw was blood and dead people strewn about the racks of beds and on the floor.  Away from the carnage in a dark corner a handful of grown women, who could not have weighed more than fifty pounds each, sat naked on the floor huddling together for warmth.

The stench, oh the rancid stink, was all consuming. It was all Valnor and his men could do to stay in the barracks more than a few minutes at a time.

“Please General, let us go.  We can’t stay.  This is unbelievable,” a soldier pleaded.

He disregarded the words, what was this man’s mild discomfort compared to these prisoners who were the source of such a foul aroma.  Valnor pulled his undershirt off over his head and tossed it toward the quivering women.  When he did not immediately see several sets of coats soon follow, Valnor turned and shouted at his men.  “What in the hell is wrong with you? Give them something to wear until the Russian Red Cross can arrive to properly handle this.”

Four coats immediately landed on the floor in front of the women.  Valnor himself had to look away.  The sight was too much to handle.  He stepped bare-chested back out into the freezing cold and progressed to the next structure, which housed men; it was the same as the women’s barracks.  Dead bodies interspersed among naked, flesh colored skeletons huddled together in an attempt to stave off hypothermia.

Barracks after barracks yielded the same sight.  Everyone was naked, or wore thin prison cloths, with no shoes in the middle of January.  Only a few people could talk, the others lacked the required energy.  A few people were able to communicate, some speaking only a syllable at a time.  They told the soldiers that once a day they were given a little water.  No bread, not anything to eat.  If someone died, the other prisoners took the clothes to get a little warmth any way they could.

Thousands upon thousands died from hunger and the cold in those buildings.  It was shocking, devastating, but the worst was yet to come.  At the end of a long row of barracks they came to a door labeled ‘kinder’ – children.

Inside there were only two children alive, all the others had been killed in gas chambers or were taken to the ‘hospital’ where Nazi doctors and scientists performed medical experiments on them.  As they entered, the children began franticly screaming, “We are not Jews!” over and over as if openly denying their heritage would save their lives.  They knew full well what had happened to the others.

It was all so thoroughly terrible that the men’s minds, even the most hardened veterans, could not absorb it.  Valnor ordered his troops to start cooking chicken and vegetable soup, but the former prisoners could not eat it because their stomachs had tightened shut like a clinched fist.  They had to start small eating just the broth for several days.

Once Valnor completed his inspection of the barracks buildings, he moved on to the solid brick structures with tall chimneys rising above the camp.  The course of the sun crossing the day’s sky caused long, dark shadows of those god-awful chimneys to touch everything inside the camp at some point.  Within those horrid structures, Valnor found a row of four cremation ovens whose fires, according to the records they found, consumed the flesh of nearly a million Jews in this camp alone.

In the adjacent structure, his soldiers opened the doors to a warehouse that contained 370,000 men’s suits, 840,000 women’s garments, and 17,000 pounds of human hair.  At that point, it became too much for even Valnor to maintain his impassive façade for his men to see.  He had to get out of that place of pure evil.

On his way out of the camp grounds, Valnor passed under a wrought iron archway that served as the entrance.  Outside he spotted four camp survivors huddled around a trashcan fire nursing a cup of chicken broth.  He found it so odd that all four men were looking up at the archway and actually smiling.  What could possibly bring them joy about that entrance?

He turned and found three German words imbedded and boldly displayed as part of the archway, ‘ARBEIT MACHT FRET’ – Work Makes You Free.  Valnor found the words to be disgustingly mocking and stood ready to chastise the four men smiling toward it.

“What in the world about that sign makes you smile?” Valnor demanded of the men in his broken German; he was a little rusty.

One of them who looked at least modestly healthy pointed toward the letter ‘B’.  “You see that letter how the bigger loop is on top with the smaller one below?  Most people shape the letter with the little loop on top.  The prisoners who were forced to make that sign hung the letter upside down as an act of defiance to let those entering know the exact opposite was the case.  Our Nazi captors never knew.  That tiny act of defiance gave all of us hope and strength to survive our ordeal.  I’d be dead now for sure if that upside-down letter ‘B’ wasn’t there.”

Valnor looked back at the archway one last time and could not help but crack a smile himself now knowing the inside joke.

“You are going to get them, right?” another prisoner asked with hope draped over every word.  “You are going to make them pay for what they’ve done here?”

“Not just here,” Valnor corrected.  “We are finding camps like this all over.  The Nazis and all the Germans who stood by and knowingly let this happen are going to pay with their lives and the chastity of their women.  Every soldier under my command will bear witness to these atrocities before we move on to Berlin. The Germans will know the meaning of suffering at the hands of my men; you can be assured of that.  Our wrath will be a thing of legend and cause the bowels of every German to turn to water when we approach to inflict our revenge, yours and mine, upon them all.  You have my word.”

It was April
20th, and Tomal had been looking forward to this day for some time.  Since moving his wife and six children into the Führer bunker beneath the Chancellery building in Berlin everyone had been so depressed.  He could not blame them since the concrete bunker, though well furnished and comfortable, was in essence a concrete prison for Hitler, his top aides, and their families. 

The Red Army shocked everyone by taking as much as twenty-five miles per day of territory toward the capital city.  By the time anyone realized what was happening, all avenues out of the city were cut off.  The leadership’s only remaining safe haven was the two-story bunker constructed thirty feet underground and surrounded by concrete walls that ran fifteen feet thick.  It was the safest place on earth; nothing could touch it.

Though safe, it was a prison and that fact grated on people’s nerves.  Today they would have some release.  It was the Führer’s birthday and Tomal had a special day of festivities planned to not only celebrate the birth of this great man, but to give everyone a temporary release from their dismal surroundings.

There would be games, fine foods and cakes.  Songs would be sung and toasts made in the Führer’s honor.  This would brighten everyone’s mood while the generals worked above ground to repel the invaders and bring in reinforcements to envelop and destroy the Soviet forces.  Those grand plans changed at eight o’clock in the morning when the ceiling began pulsating with a relentless barrage of artillery fire.

This was all Valnor’s doing, Tomal was certain of that fact.  The sniveling whelp was in command of the Soviet offensive against Berlin, and Valnor knew full well the significance Hitler’s birthday held for him.  The petty little man chose today of all days to begin his pitiful attempt to take the city from Tomal.  He would fail.

Rightly so, Hitler cancelled the planned festivities and ordered all officers to the map room where they would oversee the destruction of the Red Army.  On the map, Tomal could see Belorussian artillery moving in from the east.  Polish armored divisions were pressing up from the south, while Russian and Ukrainian troops were descending from the north; each with a mind to demolish Berlin.

“We’ve got them now,” Hitler declared and began moving grey flags around the map. “Have Field Marshal Schömer bring army group center up from the south.  Then have the IX Army set up a line facing west to press out toward the IV Panzer division north of the city in a pincer movement to envelope these incompetent Slavs.  This will anticipate a southward attack by the III Panzer Army to envelope this Belorussian front and smash them between General Steiner’s army detachment advancing north from Berlin.  It’s perfect!”

Tomal had his doubts that they had enough men and equipment to take such aggressive action, but who was he to question his Führer’s judgment?  Later that day General Steiner had the nerve to report over the radio, since nobody would dare defy Hitler’s orders in person, “I do not have the men to achieve these orders.  In fact, unless the IX Army retreats immediately to the west we risk being cut off and destroyed.  It is already too late for us to move northwest back into Berlin to help with defenses.”

“You will do as you are ordered,” Hitler hollered back.

“Those orders ensure certain destruction of my men, and I will not give that order.  You may relieve me of my command, but no one here will follow that order either,” General Steiner defiantly declared.

Hitler flew into a rage and ordered the general shot on the spot.  When informed that there were no SS officers left in that army group to carry out his order, the Führer suffered a complete nervous collapse.

“How am I supposed to run a war while I’m surrounded by such incompetence?  My plans are impossibly complex to devise.  I am the only one who can fathom them in their entirety.  You all only have the simple task of following those orders.  How hard is that?” Hitler bellowed with fists flailing about and tearing at his hair.

His longtime mistress, Eva Braun, attempted to console him, but her touch just sent him into another tirade.  “My brilliance conquered Poland.  It conquered France.  It overran Russia all the way to Moscow before you treacherous brood turned on me.  Now we are surrounded and trapped; it is all your fault!  The war is lost!”

Those last four words landed on the room like an artillery shell.  Defeat had never been a consideration, and now the Führer made it a statement of fact.  Hitler grabbed Eva’s hand and yanked her toward their private rooms.  “Come.  We will marry immediately and spend one last night as husband and wife before the end.”

Tomal did not see or hear from Hitler again that day.  He stayed locked inside his private chambers while the Soviet forces overran the streets of Berlin.  The German defenses, at this point, consisted of severely depleted, badly equipped and disorganized divisions of old men or green as grass Hitler Youth members.  They were no match for the battle hardened and hatred fueled forces arrayed against them.  Soon the Chancellery building above them came under direct attack.

By this time, the bunker had been completely cut off from communicating with German forces.  That morning Hitler and Eva emerged from their private quarters long enough to host a modest breakfast for everyone in the bunker in celebration of their nuptials.  During the quiet meal, a radio broadcast of soft classical music was interrupted by a BBC news update.

“We interrupt this broadcast to bring you urgent news from Italy.  The Reuters News Service is now reporting that Italian partisan forces have executed Italian Dictator, Benito Mussolini.  Mussolini’s body and that of his mistress, Clara Petacci, have been strung up by their heels to hang from meat hooks in the city of Milan.  There the bodies are being stoned, spat, and urinated upon by local citizens.”

“Turn it off,” Hitler ordered.  “I will not suffer such a public spectacle at the hands of my enemies.”  With that said, Hitler and Eva once again retreated into their solitude.

An hour later, a loud gunshot echoed between the concrete walls of the Führer’s bunker.  The origin of that dreadful sound was Hitler’s study.  Tomal waited a few minutes, before breeching the Führer’s privacy and entered his study.  The first thing he noticed was the room carried a heavy scent of burnt almonds, which Tomal knew was associated with cyanide poisoning.

There before him, lying dead on the sofa, was his Führer.  Eva lay on his left with her legs drawn up while Hitler lay with blood dripping out of his right temple.  He had shot himself with a pistol that lay at his feet and Eva had passed away by taking a cyanide capsule.

It was all Tomal could do not to dive upon his idol’s body and weep bitter tears at the loss of such a great man.  The heart of Germany had ceased to beat.  Tomal eventually willed his feet to exit the tragic scene worthy of Shakespeare and announced that the Führer was dead.

Soon after his discovery, the two bodies were carried up the stairs to ground level.  They were carried out the bunker’s emergency exit and brought into the garden behind the Reich Chancellery building.  There the bodies were doused with diesel fuel and set on fire.  Looking on, a small group of loyal party officials raised their arms in one final salute while standing just inside the bunker doorway.

While standing there in the doorway watching the body of his mentor disintegrate in the flames, reality came crashing in around Tomal.  Vice Admiral Voss stood next to him and said, “Leadership of the Third Reich has fallen to you now.  We should begin discussing terms of surrender with the Soviets.”

“No,” Tomal said with deep sorrow.  “I was the Reich Minister of Propaganda and led the fiercest activity against the Soviet Union, for which they would never pardon me.  Nor can I escape because Hitler charged me as Berlin’s Defense Commissioner.  It would be disgraceful for me to abandon my post.”

“What will you do then?  Those are not just artillery shells you are hearing fired from twenty miles away.  That is gunfire just a few blocks from us.  The city is lost,” the Vice Admiral concluded.

“I am going to spend time with my family,” Tomal declared and descended back into the bunker.

Unlike many other leading Nazis, Tomal had proven his faith in Hitler by moving his entire family into the bunker.  He entered the two rooms dedicated to his family and found the young ones playing with toy trains on the floor.  His two eldest children lay on their beds reading books while his wife, Magda, read in a recliner.

What Tomal realized at that moment was that he did not fear death; it meant nothing to him as an immortal.  Nor would he particularly regret never seeing his family again.  Never during all this time on this hellhole of a planet had Tomal ever considered taking a wife.  Limiting his sexual exploits to one woman was just unnatural and confining for his taste, but over the years, he watched Gallono derive so much satisfaction from his experience that he decided to give it a try. 

The children he would not miss either.  Yet again, he watched Gallono take great joy and pride in fatherhood.  Tomal could not stand the thought of Gallono enjoying a more fulfilling and thorough experience on this planet than him, so he gave fatherhood a try; six times in fact thanks to Magda’s nagging. 

Try as he may, he simply found no pleasure in it.  The children were an intolerable distraction, draining his precious time and money away from other endeavors.  No, he did not fear losing his family.  His greatest fear was dying a meaningless death.

To that end, he made arrangements with the bunker’s dentist to be a propagandist for himself.  During dinner, the good doctor injected each child with morphine to make them fall unconscious.  Next, an ampoule of cyanide poison was crushed into each of their mouths. 

Shortly after the children’s passing, Tomal rose from the dining table, put on his hat, coat, and gloves.  He then hauled his wailing wife up to the same Chancellery garden that held Hitler’s remains.  There he shot Magda in the temple to end her incessant blubbering and carrying on about the children. 

He then turned the pistol toward his own head.  He was so close to foiling Hastelloy’s secret plans with the Jews.  More than anything else, he regretted that he would now have to start over with a new existence to try and bring down Captain Hastelloy.

With that final notion, Tomal pulled the trigger without a single thought given toward the grievous violation the act of suicide brought against his Novi heritage.  He was something else now, beyond such limiting considerations.

**********

“Your crewman is a piece of work, that’s for sure,” Mark declared.  “What sort of man can do that to his own family without remorse?”

“Remorse,” Hastelloy repeated.  “I feel quite confident in stating that remorse never even entered his thought process.  What he feared more than anything else was a death devoid of dramatic effects. To the end, he was what he had always been: the propagandist for himself. Whatever he thought or did was always based on this one agonizing wish for self-exaltation, and this same objective was served by the murder of his children. They were the last victims of an egomania extending beyond the grave. However, this deed, too, failed to make him the figure of tragic destiny he’d hoped to become; it merely gave his end a touch of repulsive irony.”

“What end?” Mark countered.  “He just got regenerated through that Nexus device of yours to terrorize yet another generation.”

“I don’t mind saying, I would love to get Tomal on my couch for a few sessions,” Dr. Holmes said with a hint of shame touching his words and betraying the preamble.

“That conversation would be quite difficult to arrange I’m afraid,” Hastelloy replied dispassionately.  It was obvious that it was not his favorite topic, but questions needed to be answered about the matter.

“Where is he now?” Mark demanded.  “One of the greatest war criminals to ever exist is still around under a new identity.  Is he standing outside the Oval Office right now waiting for us to arrive?  If you want to get anywhere near the President you had damn well better be forthcoming about Tomal’s whereabouts.”