Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven…
He held his head high as the foreign voices chattered behind him, their spirited, Slavic-toned discussion no doubt centered around his soon-to-be-decided fate. This was not the time to crack or to stumble, but the moment when a man needed to retain every last scrap of his dignity. To show the coarse, cowardly Soviets who surrounded him what honor was.
The autumn breeze ruffled his hair, and he smoothed it, allowing the stocky Russian who had taken him captive to lead him into the forest, the man’s comrades following him like a pack of eager puppies who had been thrown a bone or a scrap of meat. The sun, the wind, the sound of the rustling grasses – these were the last sounds he would hear, and he savored the simplicity of them, closing his eyes and imagining that he was back in the meadows of his hometown, where fat, docile cows lazed in the shade of oak trees and crows darted through the fields, stealing the wheat bit by bit with their sharp beaks.
His one regret, the one matter that tore at his heart, was the wife he would leave behind. She would need to be strong now, he realized. She would get a telegram that would inform her that he was missing, and he knew that her gentle heart would wait for years, never giving up the hope that he would be found. Someday, she would go to her grave, never having known what had happened to him.
He blinked away the shameful tears that burned in his eyes, forcing the thought out of his mind. There was no comfort in salvation; he would never see her sweet, open face again. She would go to live among the angels, while he would be cast into fire. After the things he had witnessed, the things he had done, the things that weighed on his soul in the middle of the night when his mind was left to wander, there was simply no other option.
A meaty hand clapped on his shoulder stopped him in the small clearing, the Russians taking their places, their cruel sneers visible as the surrounded him, facing their victim. At least we never looked people in the eyes when we executed them… he thought bitterly. At least we had some vestige of decency.
A cheap pistol was raised in his direction, and he stood at attention, ready to leave the earth as a man, as a soldier, as a hero to his people. A short prayer was not needed; there was no time for an attempt to atone for his many sins.
After all, he thought as he heard the gun being cocked, better to stand tall and reign in hell than to serve on my knees in heaven.
” You will have to work in continual contact with Himmler’s Chief of Staff, Gruppenfuehrer Wolff – Himmler can’t live without his little Wolffie. Wolff’s adjutants are a pretty unpleasant lot, but don’t pay too much attention to them – their barks are worse than their bites.”
Mengele + eating pussy.
No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
asking someone to say “I love you” even though you both know it’s a lie
In the moments before he left, after he had crawled from the rumpled sheets in the hushed stillness of a bedroom that wasn’t his to be in, he knelt at her bedside, resting his head on her bare knees in an act of reverence, his sharp blue eyes tracking upward to meet hers in silent supplication. It was a ritual for him to come to her this way, to pay homage to the woman he could never fully have and silently plead to hear the words that would finally give him peace, a gracious closure before his ravaged body was inevitably buried in in blood-soaked foreign soil, a release time and time again denied to him no matter the pity in her eyes or the softness of her fingers running through his dark hair. The fingertips that haunted him when his mind wandered as he lay awake in his command post traced down to lift him by the chin, her thumb resting in the stubbled dimple for the briefest moment before retreating, his signal to come to his feet and fade away from her like the ghost he had become, his own boot-clad footsteps a personal death march.
She watched him slip on his leather overcoat and tuck his officer’s cap under his arm in the dim light of her bedside lamp, a guilty tug pulling at her stomach as he turned the doorknob for what she worried would be the last time, his movements pausing only at the sound of a whispered “I love you” that they both wished was true.
admitting to your mistakes
Such a lonely old man, the neighbors always said. Such a shame, that he never married or had a family of his own. So quiet, always keeping to himself, but polite when people saw him in the shops or his front garden. Such a sad way to end a life, alone in a house with no one to keep him company. What they didn’t know was that he had once had a happy future in the palm of his hand, and with a single finger, he had taken it away.
______________________________________________________________________
The percussive shocks of the artillery rocked the foundations of the building, the only shelter that they had. Any moment the Russians would be there, and the end would arrive. It was only a matter of waiting. He had sworn an oath, and though he knew it was futile, he would keep fighting until the end.
Whenever that was.
He was amazed by her bravery, never having expected a woman to be able to withstand the horrors of the last few weeks. Time and again, he had urged her to leave, to seek safety in the west, to flee from the advancing hordes. And time and again, she had vehemently refused, wanting only to remain by his side, wherever that took her. She knew as well as he did what would happen if the Soviets found them, but that was a chance she was apparently willing to take. He had shoved money and rations at her, trying everything to get her to attempt an escape, but it never worked.
I will stay here with you. And if I die here, then at least I died at your side.
Her words echoed in his head as she curled next to him in the empty apartment, the sounds of battle all around them. An engagement ring rested on her finger, a symbol of the promise he had made, should they make it out to freedom.
The foreign sound of Russian voices echoed in the stair hall, and her eyes were wide with terror. She knew what was imminent, and her grip on his wrist betrayed her panic.
Shoot me, Siegfried. Don’t let them touch me. Please, shoot me.
He hesitated, shocked at the words coming from her sweet mouth.
Shoot me. Bitte. If you love me, you will shoot me.
Her eyes were bright with tears, and he felt himself leave his body as he knelt down to kiss her one last time, lips salty from her crying. From some vantage point above, he watched himself stand and take his pistol from the holster.
Don’t do it! he screamed silently, floating in some sort of cruel Purgatory.
A shot rang out, the voices grew louder, and the Russians broke down the door, finding no resistance: just a dead girl and a man who didn’t care if he lived anymore.
The trauma of what she had asked him so fervently to do stayed with him, a weight upon his heart through the torture and starvation, the years in the gulag mining gold for the Kremlin. He did not feel anymore, he did not care. Life, death, torture – these things held no meaning for him. He deserved to die, he reasoned, and was almost disappointed when he was returned, alive and relatively well, to his Heimat after ten years of hell. He would never marry, never search for happiness, never forgive himself.
He simply waited.
When death finally took him in his sleep, at eighty years of age, he would be happy. Freed from this life, he would finally join her again, to beg her forgiveness, to pick up where they had left off as 20-year-old youths in the May of 1945.
Just one last time
Just one last time, he needed her. He longed for her, sitting in that dank cell, on the cot that was too short, in the prison clothes that were too small, alone with his thoughts for hour after torturous hour. Of course he thought of his children, of his brothers, of his childhood. He spent long evenings recalling his days at the university, of the parties and the duels, the women and wine. But most of all, he remembered her.
Her cheerful, gentle demeanor, her radiant face, seemingly always smiling up at him. She adored him and everyone could see it plainly, for she refused to hide it, to hell with what others thought. He loved his wife – truly, he did – but he loved her in another way entirely.
His fingers fumbled with the buttons on his suit, drably matching his fellow defendants in the dock. He was gaunt now, wiry, a far cry from his former powerful self. The hemmorrhages had taken their toll. Why had they saved him then, only to kill him now?
Sick victors’ justice, he fumed. Sadists, the lot of them.
But he saw her then, through the metal grille, looking tired and anxious, her face drawn and guarded. He could tell that she had gotten little sleep, that she had cried ever since his sentence had been announced. Even so, she was more beautiful than before, and he ran to her, closing the distance between them as best he could. His fingers reached in vain through the cruel wire, struggling to touch her once more, putting his lips against the mesh, the taste of her mouth mixing with the tang of steel and the saltiness of tears.
To touch you just one last time…
Taking him home when he’s had too much to drink
She was so used to it by now, collecting him at the end of the night when his comrades called for her, knowing of that office romance though they would never openly acknowledge it in the daytime. She would emerge from the ballroom in her elegant evening gown, finding him slumped in a leather armchair in the corner of the conference room. His perfectly styled hair would be mussed, bangs falling across his forehead, and his uniform would be rumpled, his tie loosened and shirt unbuttoned at the top. And still, even so, she would find him as handsome as ever.
He kissed her hand as she approached, and she helped him to his unsteady feet, turning beet red as his fingers clumsily groped her breast.
“Kannst du noch laufen?”
His pale eyes were glassy and he managed to nod, his comrades watching with amusement as she braced his back with her delicate arm, guiding him into the marble hall.
“Brauchen Sie Hilfe, Ingrid?” one of them called out, clearly enjoying the comical sight of the petite young woman trying to support the much taller SS officer.
She ignored their jolly laughter, focusing instead on bringing the man next to her into the cool, sobering night air. He always did this, whenever there was a gala or a party, or even a late evening. He had learned to drink during his student days, and could still finish off a Kanne faster than just about anyone in the Gestapo headquarters. And as the war progressed, that practice had served him well.
And until the end, until he sent her out of Berlin with the threat of death and rape at the hands of the Soviets, until he handed her a wad of cash and a pistol and ordered her to save herself, she would be there after every late night, ready to serve as the man’s sober guardian angel, to lead him safely home.
Calling ernst kaltenbrunner “daddy”
The beautiful young blonde smiled to herself as she waited in the plush Berlin hotel room, patiently counting the hours for him to return from his meeting with Himmler. She could not wait to see his powerful form walk through the door, to see the light catch on the scars that crossed his left cheek, slashes that called forth both respect and primal fear. His tailored field-gray uniform would stink of cigarette smoke and hard liquor, but she loved those scents because they belonged so intrinsically to him.
This is what Himiltrude, the lover of Karl der Große, must have felt like, she thought to herself. A strong lover at the height of his power, the world at his feet, and she had earned her place at his side, securing it in a way that only a woman could. No, Gisela, don’t call her a lover. She was a wife, that’s what Ernst would say. Perhaps not in the pure legal sense, but in the old Germanic tradition of the Friedelehe. She could just hear his voice in her imagination, the mark of his northern Austrian accent always charming to the ear. Lisl may be my wife on paper, sweetheart, but you are my wife in my heart. You, liebe, are my Himiltrude.
The sound of his boots on the parquet floor brought her to her senses, hurrying to fall into his arms, the place where she felt most at home. He lifted her up, his lips burning with the taste of cognac, and her heart could have burst for joy.
Feet back on the ground, she twined her fingers in his, ignoring the yellow nicotine stains that would never wash away, pointedly not looking at the silver wedding band that he wore below his Death’s Head ring. “How I’ve missed you.” he admitted. “You won’t believe the stress I’ve had with the goddamn ghetto revolt in Warschau.”
Her heart skipped a beat as she moved his broad hand to her svelte middle. “Well, I’ll make it up to you with some happy news, Vati.”
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