The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century (44 page)

Today I attended the state funeral for Adolf Hitler. They asked me to give the eulogy. It wouldn’t have been so bothersome except that Himmler pulled himself out of his thankful retirement to advise me on all the things I mustn’t say. The old fool still believes that we are laying the foundation for a religion. Acquainted as he is with my natural skepticism, he never ceases to worry that I will say something in public not meant for the consumption of the masses. It is a pointless worry on his part; not even early senility should enable him to forget that I am the propaganda expert. Still, I do not question his insistence that he is in rapport with what the masses feel most deeply. I leave such matters to one who is uniquely qualified for the task.

I suppose that I was the last member of the entourage to see Hitler alive. Speer had just left, openly anxious to get back to his work with the Von Braun team. In his declining years he has taken to involving himself full-time with the space program. This question of whether the Americans or we will reach the moon first seems to me a negligible concern. I am convinced by our military experts that the space program that really matters is in terms of orbiting platforms for the purpose of global intimidation. Such a measure seems entirely justified if we are to give the
Führer
his thousand-year Reich (or something even close).

The
Führer
and I talked of Himmler’s plans to make him an SS saint. “How many centuries will it be,” he asked in a surprisingly firm voice, “before they forget I was a man of flesh and blood?”

“Can an Aryan be any other?” I responded dryly, and he smiled as he is wont to do at my more jestful moments.

“The spirit of Aryanism is another matter,” he said. “The same as destiny or any other workable myth.”

“Himmler would ritualize these myths into a new reality,” I pointed out.

“Of course,” agreed Hitler. “That has always been
his
purpose. You and I are realists. We make use of what is available.” He reflected for a moment and then continued: “The war was a cultural one. If you ask the man in the street what I really stood for, he would not come near the truth. Nor should he!”

I smiled. I’m sure he took that as a sign of assent. This duality of Hitler, with its concern for exact hierarchies to replace the old social order—and what is true for the
Volk
is not always what is true for us—seemed to me just another workable myth, often contrary to our stated purposes. I would never admit that to him. In his own way Hitler was quite the bone-headed philosopher.

“Mein Führer,”
I began, entirely a formality in such a situation but I could tell that he was pleased I had used the address, “the Americans love to make fun of your most famous statement about the Reich that will last one thousand years, as though what we have accomplished now is an immutable status quo.”

He laughed. “I love those Americans. I really do. They believe their own democratic propaganda... so obviously what we tell our people must be what we believe! American credulity is downright refreshing at times, especially after dealing with Russians.”

On the subject of Russians Hitler and I did not always agree, so there was no point in continuing that line of dialogue at this late date. Before he died I desperately wished to ask him some questions that had been haunting me. I could see that his condition was deteriorating. This would be my last opportunity.

The conversation rambled on for a bit, and we again amused ourselves over how Franklin Delano Roosevelt had plagiarized National Socialism’s Twenty-five Points when he issued his own list of economic rights. How fortunate for us that when FDR borrowed other of our policies, he fell flat on his face. War will always be the most effective method for disposing of surplus production, although infinitely more hazardous in a nuclear age. We never thought that FDR could push America into using our approach for armaments production.

Hitler summed up: “Roosevelt fell under the influence of the madman Churchill; that’s what happened!”

“Fortunately our greatest enemy in America was impeached,” I said. The last thing we’d needed was a competing empire-builder with the resources of the North American continent. I still fondly recalled the afternoon the American Congress was presented with evidence that FDR was a traitor on the Pearl Harbor question.

“I’ve never understood why President Dewey didn’t follow FDR’s lead,
domestically
,” Hitler went on. “They remained in the war, after all. My God, the man even released American-Japanese from those concentration camps and insisted on restitution payments! And this during the worst fighting in the Pacific!”

“That was largely the influence of Vice President Taft,” I reminded Hitler. His remarkable memory had suffered these last years.

“Crazy Americans,” he said, shaking his head. “They are the most unpredictable people on earth. They pay for their soft hearts in racial pollution.”

We moved on into small talk, gossiping about various wives, when that old perceptiveness of the
Führer
touched me once again. He could tell that I wasn’t speaking my mind. “Joseph, you and I were brothers in Munich,” he said. “I am on my deathbed. Surely you can’t be hesitant to ask me
anything
. Speak, man. I would talk in my remaining hours.”

And how he could talk. I remember one dinner party for which an invitation was extended to my two eldest daughters, Helga and Hilda. Hitler entertained us with a brilliant monologue on why he hated modern architecture anywhere but factories. He illustrated many of his points about the dehumanizing aspect of giant cities with references to the film
Metropolis
. Yet despite her great love for the cinema Hilda would not be brought out by his entreaties. Everyone else enjoyed the evening immensely.

On this solemn occasion I asked if he had believed his last speech of encouragement in the final days of the war when it seemed certain that we would be annihilated. Despite his words of stern optimism there was quite literally no way of his knowing that our scientists had at that moment solved the shape-charge problem. Thanks to Otto Hahn and Werner Heisenberg working together, we had developed the atomic bomb first. Different departments had been stupidly fighting over limited supplies of uranium and heavy water. Speer took care of that, and then everything began moving in our direction. After the first plutonium came from a German atomic pile it was a certain principle that we would win.

I still viewed that period as miraculous. If Speer and I had not convinced the army and air force to cease their rivalry for funds, we never would have developed the V-3 in time to deliver those lovely new bombs.

In the small hours of the morning one cannot help but wonder how things might have been different. We’d been granted one advantage when the cross-Channel invasion was delayed in 1943. But 1944 was the real turning point of the war. Hitler hesitated to use the nuclear devices, deeply fearful of the radiation hazards to our side as well as the enemy. If it had not been for the assassination attempt of July 20th, he might not have found the resolve to issue the all-important order: destroy Patton and his Third Army before they become operational, before they invade Europe like a cancer. What a glorious time that was for all of us, as well as my own career. For the Russians there were to be many bombs, and many German deaths among them. It was a small price to stop Marxism cold. Even our concentration camps in the East received a final termination order in the form of the by-now familiar mushroom clouds.

If the damned Allies had agreed to negotiate, all that misery could have been avoided. Killing was dictated by history. Hitler fulfilled Destiny. He never forgave the West for forcing him into a two-front war, when he, the chosen one, was their best protection against the Slavic hordes.

How he’d wanted the British Empire on our side. How he’d punished them for their folly. A remaining V-3 had delivered The Bomb on London, fulfilling a political prophecy of the
Führer
. He had regretted that; but the premier war criminal of our time, Winston Churchill, had left him no alternative. They started unrestricted bombing of civilians; well, we finished it. Besides, it made up for the failure of Operation Sea Lion.

Right doesn’t guarantee might. The last years of the war taught us that. How had Hitler found the strength to fill us all with hope when there was no reason for anything but despair? Could he really foretell the future?

“Of course not,” he answered. “I had reached the point where I said we would recover at the last second with a secret weapon of invincible might...
without believing it at all
! It was pure rhetoric. I had lost hope long ago. The timing on that last speech could not have been better. Fate
was
on our side.”

So at last I knew. Hitler had bluffed us all again. As he had begun, so did he end: the living embodiment of
will
.

I remembered his exaltation at the films of nuclear destruction. He hadn’t been that excited, I’m told, since he was convinced of the claim for Von Braun’s rockets—and it took a film for that, as well.

At each report of radiation dangers, he had the more feverishly buried himself in the
Führerbunker
, despite assurances of every expert that Berlin was safe from fallout. Never in my life have I known a man more concerned for his health, more worried about the least bit of a sore throat after a grueling harangue of a speech. And the absurd lengths he went to for his diet, limited even by vegetarian standards. Yet his precautions had brought him to this date, to see himself master of all Europe. Who was in a position to criticize
him
?

He had a way of making me feel like a giant. “I should have listened to you so much earlier,” he now told me, “when you called for Totalization of War on the homefront. I was too soft on Germany’s womanhood. Why didn’t I listen to you?” Once he complimented a subordinate, he was prone to continue. “It was an inspiration, the way you pushed that morale-boosting joke: ‘If you think the war is bad, wait until you see the peace, should we lose.’ ” He kept on, remembering to include my handling of the foreign press during
Kristalnacht
, and finally concluding with his favorite of all my propaganda symbols: “Your idea to use the same railway carriage from the shameful surrender of 1918, to receive France’s surrender in 1940, was the greatest pleasure of my life.” His pleasure was contagious.

He propped himself up slightly in bed, a gleam of joy in his eyes. He looked like a little boy again. “I’ll tell you something about my thousand years. Himmler invests it with the mysticism you’d expect. Ever notice how Jews, Muslims, Christians, and our very own pagans have a predilection for millennia? The number works a magic spell on them.”

“Pundits in America observe that also. They say the number is merely good psychology, and point to the longevity of the ancient empires of China, Rome, and Egypt for similar numerical records. They say that Germany will never hold out that long.”

“It won’t,” said Hitler, matter-of-factly.

“What do you mean?” I asked, suddenly not sure of the direction he was moving. I suspected it had something to do with the cultural theories, but of his grandest dreams for the future Hitler had always been reticent... even with me.

“It will take at least that long,” he said, “for the New Culture to take root on earth. For the New Europe to be what I have foreseen.”

“If Von Braun has his way, we’ll be long gone from earth by then! At least he seems to plan passages for many Germans on his spaceships.”

“Germans!” spat out Hitler. “What care I for Germans or Von Braun’s space armada? Let the technical side of Europe spread out its power in any direction it chooses. Speer will be
their
god. He is the best of that collection. But let the other side determine the values, man. The values, the spiritual essence. Let them move through the galaxy for all I care, so long as they look homeward to me for the guiding cultural principles. And Europe will be the eternal monument to that vision. I speak of a Reich lasting a thousand years? It will take that long to finish the job, to build something that will then last for the rest of eternity.”

The old fire was returning. His voice was its old, strong hypnotic self. His body quivered with the glory of his personal vision, externalized for the whole of mankind to touch, to worship... or to fear. I bowed my head in the presence of the greatest man in history.

He fell back for a minute, exhausted, lost in the phantasms behind his occluded eyes. Looking at the weary remains of this once-human dynamo, I was sympathetic, almost sentimental. I said: “Remember when we first met through our anti-Semitic activities? It was an immediate bond between us.”

He chuckled. “Oh, for the early days of the Party again. At the beginning you thought me too bourgeois.”

He was dying in front of me, but his mind was as alert as ever. “Few people understand why we singled out the Jew, even with all the Nazi literature available,” I continued.

He took a deep breath. “I was going to turn all of Europe into a canvas on which I’d paint the future of humanity. The Jew would have been my severest and most obstinate critic.” The
Führer
always had a gift for the apt metaphor. “Your propaganda helped keep the populace inflamed. That anger was only fuel for the task at hand.”

We had discussed on previous occasions the fundamental nature of the Judeo-Christian ethic, and how the Christian was a spiritual Semite (as any pope would observe). The Jew had made an easy scapegoat. There was such a fine old tradition behind it. But once the Jew was for all practical purposes removed from Europe, there remained the vast mass of Christians, many Germans among them. Hitler had promised strong measures in confidential statements to high officials of the SS. Martin Bormann had been the most ardent advocate of the
Kirchenkampf
, the campaign against the churches. In the ensuing years of peace and the nuclear stalemate with the United States little had come of it. I brought up the subject again.

“It will take generations,” he answered. “The Jew is only the first step. And please remember that Christianity will by no means be the last obstacle, either. Our ultimate enemy is an idea dominant in the United States in theory, if not in practice. Their love of the individual is more dangerous to us than even mystical egalitarianism. In the end the decadent idea of complete freedom will be more difficult to handle than all the religions and other imperial governments put together.” He lapsed back into silence, but only for a moment. “We are the last bastion of true Western civilization. America is always a few steps from anarchy. They would sacrifice the state to the individual! But Soviet communism—despite an ideology—was little better. Its state was all muscles and no brain. It forbade them to get the optimum use out of their best people. Ah, only in the German Empire, and especially here in New Berlin, do we see the ideal at work. The state uses most individuals as the sheep they were meant to be. More important is that the superior individual is allowed to use the state.”