The first hero and victim lies in a long line to come on all sides Jewish German Polish Dutch French Greek Serbian Russian English virile brave hard-working for the Vaterland mother-country patrie according to the climate height of aircraft speed of conquest pride fear ignorance gnawing guilt wonder at these questions Fräulein but how did you come to stay in Germany at all at the beginning of the emergency? Your mother no doubt awaited you anxiously and the government made all provisions for repatriation of aliens. Or did you not regard yourself as alien? So you had appendicitis? Could you not have returned to France for the operation? Peritonitis. And complications. In the Krankenhaus at Nürnberg. Ah well. But you would have returned if you could? You regard yourself as French? Your father, ah! Yes, well we need not probe further into that, nobody blames you Fräulein and we have evidence that he has since died, purged we may say, by our charming neighbours. Gut. So you had a year in Freiburg? Who paid, die Baronin? A scholarship. So you feel you owe something to the German Reich surely. But why did you study French? France had already become our ally then and you must have realised it could hardly come in very useful for the war effort. And Provençal, Mediaeval French? Fräulein we need guns not butter. Well, to get a degree Herr Oberstleutnant, after the war of course, besides, one had the choice Herr Oberstleutnant, if the government did not wish one to pursue such studies they could have changed the syllabus. But in its wisdom — Ja-ja, quite so, the war will not last much longer, and what had you intended to pursue? After the war of course. Well, er, Middle High German. Mittelhoch? Yes, Hartmann von Aue for example or Wolfram’s Parzifal. Ah, Parzifal, ja der Fuehrer likes that too. You see Herr Oberstleutnant one should know the sources and not deny what our great culture owes to France, at least at the time. Und jetzt auch, Fräulein und jetzt auch, we have never denied the Kultur of that great country indeed, Feldmarschall Goering has made a particular point of honouring it. Meanwhile you must face the Dienstverpflichtung. Pity you did not study English, much more useful at this stage. You have? Ein bisschen. No qualifications. You will. Gut-gut. Well we can draft you into the Censorship until you do, you realise of course you would get much better pay with an extra language, English especially. Well now, I assume you have not heard at all from your mother in France? Now how do you feel about that? Man muss? Do you feel so impersonal Fräulein about das Vaterland die Heimat mother-country patrie according to the presentation of a tactical withdrawal but strategic gain or vice versa read daily from the enemy point of view which says that England has lost many battles but never a war forgetting a little one called The Hundred Years lost despite Crécy Agincourt not to mention the American War of Independence und so weiter in the Presseüberwachungsabteilung Ausland (PA), Auslandspresseländergruppe Nord, Auslandspresseüberwachungsländergruppenreferatsleiter or for short Referat England (RE) housed in a requisitioned brothel Pommernstrasse Berlin with on the desk fat files labelled Geheime Reichssache and on the wall the poster of a wall patterned in huge ears and FEIND HÖRT MIT.
Feind hört mit everywhere all the time und man hört den Feind all day in drumming headlines and all night rumbling in the distant dark way up, the dark sliced through by searchlights converging on the dark sliced through by flak like red lightning in the dark sliced through by the falling scream with which the load excreted by the Feind speeds down and lands with distant thuds, closer crunches or a very close crash exploding into scarlet flames and flaring up the distant dark way up beyond the AA roof unless perhaps the shelter door.
— So you work in the AA?
Achtung Feind-hört-mit ya.
— A-A, A-A, A-A.
— Du Schmutzling-Witzling.
Such an old joke too everyone makes it the baby on its pot A-A and Vati-papa-ton-père so foolish and headstrong your father in a mad weak moment saying A-A elle a fait son A-A everyone makes it dans ses culottes sie stinkt was für ein kleines Schwein hast du mir da geboren. Yes well I wish you would joke sometimes and not act so solemn, so damned self-contained and secretive, like a ruddy geheime Reichssache. You should let up a little and come out with me instead of working half the night at your stupid old books. Yes, I know, you want to sit for your degree in silly old Freiburg. And what about the war? Meaning what about me and my desires. You think only of yourself, your interests, your future. Zukunft, du lieber Gott es gibt keine, we live from day to day and probably die tomorrow ich liebe dich don’t you love me even a little?
The same question everywhere goes unanswered on crowded trains to Nürnberg for Urlaub or elsewhere in dark streets after cinemas in dim-lit restaurants canteens according to the partner unless Johann in the office who has organisiert a tin of beef he brings into your little room later begging only to see and touch a little or a mere mad weak moment of flattering attraction boredom fatigue enthusiasm for Horst Heinrich Hans Hartmann Friedrich Konrad Rudolf in grey-green with yellow tabs on the collar grey-blue with red tabs on the collar holding you closely in their arms or eating drinking making merry cheering up our brave boys for which you must pay duty also to the customs that splendid officers commissioned or non-commissioned have of coming up into your little room just for a goodnight drink I promise and unbuttoning your white blouse pushing up your pullover fondling you all over underneath your skirt o du, geheime Reichssache demanding unconditional surrender Endsieg um Gottes Willen let me make love to you tomorrow I go away. To Africa to the Russian Front to Greece to Crete to Sicily to Norway in a pride of conquest and Organisieren. I shall die for my country and you won’t even love me a little. To Nürnberg for Urlaub on crowded trains don’t talk to any strange men will you or to anyone at all on smelly trains that stop three hours in the middle of nowhere at night slowly growing up growing away from those who willy-nilly have harboured a half-Feind in their midst growing away with Hans met in Berlin then stationed in München komm mal her hand in hand into den Alten Peter half destroyed already warum? Warum hast du mich hergebracht? I hate seeing damaged churches. Because, because, I wanted to show you something, someone, die Patronin der alleinstehenden Frauen. But she has vanished. Die Patronin der — du, eine alleinstehende Frau? Niemals. Except I hope until I come back and marry you and if you have a child just contact my parents, net? Growing away, growing up slowly, retarded frigid evidently even in Rothenburg gem-city as yet undamaged between the sheet and the tumbled sheeted eiderdown surrounded by the ice-cold air despite the wood-pannelling kein Kohlenklau says the host with a smirk but you have enough heat between you I imagine nicht wahr on the Romantische Strasse with Hans in grey-green and yellow tabs who goes off to the Russian Front tomorrow and does get killed. Grüss Gott and gone.
Endsieg.
No trace of them Fräulein, the authorities requisitioned the castle as Nazi-owned and came to chuck them out but they had vanished.
Ah non mademoiselle il n’y a personne sous ce nom-là dans cet immeuble. Un nom allemand? Y avait des boches partout. Et après prrrt ils ont fichu le camp. Avant la guerre? Ah ça alors j’n’en sais rien, y-a-que deux ans que je travaille ici. On l’aura emmenée, probablement, au début de la guerre. Et plus tard, ben, j’sais pas moi.
Plus tard, più tardi, l’altra cosa più tardi non si ricorda esattamente comes from the Red Cross and says as far as we can trace the matter your mother left for Germany after the Allied landings in the South of France evidently under the protection of a German officer. Local records show that a person of that name died in Nuremberg during an American air-raid.