Look Who's Back

by Timur Vermes

In the presence of the Führer, you see, many people begin to behave unnaturally. In such situations I always say “No fuss, please,” but of course the ordinary man pays no heed to this.

The Turks I saw looked like Turks; I failed to detect any enhancement through Aryan blood, even though such a development must surely be of interest to the Turk. What such a large number of Turks was doing on the streets remained a complete mystery.

When the pupils of both races became aware of my presence, I noticed joyful recognition flash across some of their faces. The pupils of German descent must know me from their history classes, the Turkish ones from the darkest recesses of the television set.

“No,” I said, reassuring her. “That was fine. I do not expect perfection from any comrade. All I expect is for him to try his best, each in his own way. And you seem to be very much on the right track. Just one tiny favour, please. No more screaming!”

In essence it was just glorified mental arithmetic.

Many may be better than I at driving a motorcar, but when it comes to tidying up a front line or judging how long to offer resistance when caught in a pocket, then I am still the one who makes the decision and not some Herr Paulus who is starting to get cold feet.

Anyway, on the basis of various reminiscences I declared myself willing to follow Fräulein Krömeier’s instructions, and I must say it was worth my while. I had always been put off by typewriters. I never wanted to be an accountant or pen-pusher, and I had dictated my books. The last thing I wanted to do was type away like some pea-brained hack in a local rag, but then this miracle of German resourcefulness arrived: the mouse contraption.

“Then we will simply have to get them back,” I thundered. “You can’t get anything back,” she said petulantly.

“But this is an outrage! I am not just any old clown!” “That’s what it’s like on the Internet. Like, first come, first served? You could choose something symbolic?”

If one chooses to believe the democratic writers of history, fighting only continued for one pathetic week following my withdrawal from active politics at the end of April 1945. This is a disgrace. Dönitz called off the resistance of the Werwolf partisans, and Bormann’s expensive bunker installations were never properly used. I accept that, no matter how many human lives we sacrificed, we would still have had to count on the Russians flooding Berlin with their hordes. But I had relished the prospect of reading about a catalogue of nasty surprises devised for the arrogant Americans – now, to my bitter disappointment, I learned that there had not been a single one.

What I had written in 1924 had proved true once more: by the end of a major war the most valuable elements of the Volk have fallen selflessly at the front, leaving behind only the mediocre and inferior chaff, who then of course consider themselves too good or, paradoxically, even too refined to go underground and prepare a good old-fashioned bloodbath for the Americans.

Contrary to what the petty-minded may assume, the Führer is not obliged to come up with answers immediately – he needs only to have them up his sleeve at the right time. And in this instance let us say that the right time would be at the outbreak of the next war.

In the intervening years the French arch-enemy had become our closest friend. The fools in charge of the two countries flung their arms around each other’s necks at the slightest opportunity, swearing that never again would they fight each other like real men. This steadfast resolve was cemented in a European alliance, not dissimilar to a gang of schoolboys. The gang seemed to have spent its time arguing over who should be the leader and who had to contribute the most sweets.

No sane person would trust such cowards with a box of drawing pins were there even the hint of an alternative. But none existed.

I thought nostalgically of Otto Wels or Paul Löbe, unpatriotic fellows, blackguards, no question about it, but at least they were blackguards of stature.

These days Social Democracy was led by a pushy blancmange and a ...

Over the course of a few decades this catalogue of political failures had run down the greatest army in the world, and to such an extent that one would be tempted to line them all up against a wall.

Sure, I had preached again and again that one must never finish off the East for good, that a certain element of conflict must always remain, that a healthy Volk needs a war every twenty-five years for the renewal of its blood.

One could see at first glance that, militarily, the whole affair was highly dubious; the number of troops sent was not calculated in relation to any particular goal, but – according to best parliamentary tradition – so as to avoid discontent amongst both the people and our “allies”.

The sole outcome of this escapade was that the soldier’s heroic death, the most noble way a man can end his life, had been practically eliminated.

One might as well have let a troop of degenerate apes run the country; they would have done a better job. The so-called reunification had brought no improvement; at best one had the impression that apes had been swapped for other apes.

An idiot who does idiotic things is not funny. A good joke needs the surprise element to unfurl its didactic effect to the full. How could it strike anyone as a surprise that a Turk is a nincompoop? Of course, if there were a joke about a Turk playing the role of a brilliant scientist, then the absurdity of this alone would raise a laugh.

If you have rats in the house you don’t call a clown, you call the vermin exterminators.

it was essential for me to demonstrate from my very first appearance that an upright German has no need of foreign henchmen to help him make jokes about inferior races.

one had to consider that Jenny’s generation had never had the opportunity to experience life at the front. I intended to change this in the future, but for the time being I decided to meet familiarity with familiarity and said reassuringly to the young thing, “You can call me Uncle Wolf.”

I never failed to find it gratifying that over the past few decades the German racial inheritance had not been fully swamped by the genetic soup of democracy.

I was going to build my Germany. I could feel the tension within me, and the joy, too. If ever I had harboured doubts, these vanished in the rapture of this build-up. I was accustomed to speaking for hours on end; now I had but five minutes.

I realised straight away that this man feared silence, and knew nothing of its power.

Germans today keep their waste more thoroughly separated than their races, with one single exception. In the field of humour.

Sensenbrink was wearing what these days would probably be called a high-quality suit. He was trying to look casual, but I could see that he was pale; his face exhibited the pallor of a gambler who knows that he cannot suffer a loss, or worse still, he cannot bear the moment in which it becomes obvious that his loss is inevitable.

“Good God!” I laughed. “Stop at once! A pretty thing like yourself stuffed full of such cerebral nonsense! You would be far better off finding yourself a brave young husband and doing something to help preserve the German race.”

In peacetime, however, one just stands around wasting one’s time drinking fruit pulp.

“Is it a coincidence? I mean, that you’re a vegetarian too?” “Absolutely not,” I said. “It’s common sense. I have been one for so long, it was only a matter of time before others shared my conviction. It’s just those buffet cooks who don’t seem to have heard of it.” “No, what I meant was: have you always been one, or only since you became Hitler?” “I have always been Hitler. Who do you imagine I was before that?”

“First,” I said, “it is a question of well-being. And second, there can be no doubt that this is the way nature desires it. Look, a lion can run two or three kilometres before it is completely exhausted. Twenty minutes, not even – a quarter of an hour. A camel, on the other hand, can keep going for a week. It’s the food which does that.”

“German and History. In fact I wanted to be a journalist.” “It’s a good thing you aren’t one,” I asserted. “Lying vermin, through and through.”

“No wavering. Onward, quick march. Women’s hearts are like battles. They are not won through hesitation. One must concentrate all one’s forces and deploy them gallantly.”

“In the later years especially I won more battles than women.”

All they ever do is tell people what to think. The wholesome sensibility of the Volk is in no way inferior. Indeed, the Volk instinctively knows what to think, even without our noble critics. A wholesome Volk has a perfectly clear sense of what is good and what is not. Does the farmer need a critic to tell him how good the soil is in which he cultivates his wheat? No! The farmer himself knows better.”

“Well, you should know,” he said with a grin, offering me the sugar. “I mean, you’re the expert on forming one’s own opinions.”

Those drunk on success always cry foul whenever a fresh idea makes its mark. At once they start fretting about their livelihood.”

“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.”

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.

“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.” “Ten thousand men? What ten thousand men?” “Ten thousand stormtroopers, theoretically. And that’s a conservative estimate. But I don’t imagine you have an S.A. yet, do you? So you will need at least 15,000.” “You really are a few sandwiches short of a picnic,” Sensenbrink said. I had no idea what he was going on about, although he sounded cheerful enough. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I heard glasses clinking in the background. “But watch out, one day someone’s going to take you seriously!” And he hung up.

I have even read that a German war minister was lately photographed with a wench in a swimming pool. While his troops were in the field, or at least preparing for deployment. Had I been in charge, this would have been the gentleman’s last day in office. I wouldn’t have bothered with a letter of resignation – you lay a pistol on his desk, a bullet in the chamber, you leave the room, and if the blackguard has an ounce of decency he knows what he has to do. And if not, the following morning the bullet’s in his brain, and he’s face down in the pool. Then everyone else in the ministry knows what to expect if you stab your troops in the back while wearing swimming trunks.

It was like living in a climate of fear, and this under a form of government which was supposed to be so free. The simple, innocent woman from the Volk dared not speak openly in my presence when I approached her in my plain soldier’s uniform. I was appalled. And this was the reaction from approximately three-quarters of the people to whom I spoke. The other quarter asked, “Are you the new security guard around here? Finally someone’s saying something! It’s an absolute disgrace! They should all be locked up!”

A large number of people had already gathered in the city centre to demonstrate against the government. Seemingly it had occurred to no-one to opt for the most obvious solution – stormtroopers – but at least they had erected a kind of market stall to collect signatures, aimed at eliminating the sensationally high figure of 100,000 abortions per year in Germany. Such large-scale extermination of German blood is unacceptable to me too, of course. Any cretin could see that, assuming 50 per cent were boys, this would lead to a loss of three divisions in the medium term. If not four. In my presence, however, these upright, decent people were unwilling to articulate their beliefs, and shortly after we arrived the demonstration broke up altogether.

“You could even turn a vicar into an atheist,” Madame Bellini laughed as she viewed the material.

The Führer’s violin, however, is the Volk. And his cohorts.

Not only have I always set great store by having impeccable cohorts, for the most part I have found them too.

The right consorts, I pondered again, as I observed Fräulein Krömeier typing up my latest Führer speech. I was entirely satisfied with Fräulein Krömeier’s efforts overall. Her work could not be faulted; her commitment was exemplary, and of late she had been at my disposal for the whole day. The only area where there was room for improvement was her appearance. Not that she looked dishevelled or unkempt, but this outwardly sombre impression – which flew in the face of her affability – this deathlike pallor was hardly conducive to such a joyous and life-affirming movement as National Socialism.