 by Dr. Jeffrey Lant. Author's program note. Another minion of the unmitigated evil now only known ironically as the Thousand Year Reich has expired, full of years and blessed, so it seems, by the absence of ghosts, demons, guilt or shame... or even significant recall or remembrance. And as for remorse ... Thus his story becomes a cautionary tale, its immediate protagonist the most apt representation of the original since John Heywood brought forth in 1546 the celebrated words; the actuality, of course, having been known to discerning people since such people first existed. (Sadly, just when that moment occurred no two people agree.) The problem with Nazis... As the last living Nazis and their still extant (if muted and arthritic) sympathizers approach their century, it is now predictable to hear certain "truths" about them and the entire, antiquated apparatus of their gimcrack imperium. First and always, that these are the oldest of folks far beyond their youthful hatreds. This is the "why bother with these tabbies?" position adopted by those who in their salad days unrelentingly pursued their quarry even into concentration camps and the fearsome (and always spotlessly clean and gleaming) paraphernalia of organized extermination. There was nothing casual about these representatives of the reprehensible regime... and it is therefore only fitting and proper that there be nothing casual about the matter of the process that finds, apprehends and punishes them. "Blessed are the merciful for they will obtain mercy"... but there are no such people here. "I knew nothing." If you have ever entered an inhabited elevator, you know this excuse for in this common, trivial event you may easily see its grander manifestation: you move away from the canaille, as far away as you can get in the small space, contained and swiftly moving. You avoid looking at your fellow travelers, much less offering any but the most cursory of greetings; such contacts, after all, may mature beyond inconvenience, and that will never do. Thus, eyes are instantly cast down, nothing seen, nothing known, absolutely nothing admitted. The "shame" here is not that you have done anything wrong but that your fellow denizens have; for their very presence is affronting and downcast eyes are sign enough that you are right to shun them... thus if the elevator decapitates them at journey's end, you can comfortably scurry away... for though you saw all, your official position is adamantly the reverse. "I was only following orders." Here is the most popular, the most frequently used and the most insidious response; its defenders insisting it is not an excuse but a thorough and complete explanation for "common" people in all times and places who secretly are in solidarity with anyone oppressed but cannot say so, much less do so. "Sorry about that, I'm sure you understand", being the preferred words to discourage any further mention of this awkward matter. The problem is that this line of explanation is understandable, one we might well offer ourselves under the right circumstances. Opposition, even in the most rooted and pacific of democracies, can be difficult, strenuous, even a risk, for when you pipe up and oppose, even amongst the most civilized of people, you invite the inevitable and often hilariously inadequate opposing "thought", up to and including verbal abuse and physical violence . This inevitably discourages many and thereby thins their otherwise noisome numbers. However, though this explanation is popular and sanctified by frequent usage, it fails to satisfy. It will perhaps save your (and my) precious skin at a moment of danger, trepidation and the full panoply of pain and retribution... but it will never satisfy the moral man, that inconvenient being who uncomfortably resides in each of us, insistently reminding us all that we each bear our share of good and evil and that we are required per the management to bear witness one way or the other to what we did and didn't do. In that spirit, it is time for you to meet Rochus Misch, soldier of the Third Reich, bodyguard to its fuehrer, the man who saw everything and perceived nothing. "I have nothing." Born in the Silesian village of Alt Schalkowitz in what is today Poland, Misch was orphaned at an early age. Thus, shiftless, no family or relatives to assist, friendships precluded because of his rootless situation, he was just the person Hitler's SS was looking for, the committed follower who would believe what he was told was true, and would do whatever he was told to do. Such people are always dangerous... and are always useful to have around. Whitney Houston in her mesmerizing "The Bodyguard" album (1992) might have been singing for der fuehrer himself and his unbeatable pitch to people like Misch where in the opening lines to "I Have Nothing" she caught the essence of Nazi (or any other terrorist) proselytizing. Go to any search engine and listen to this tune now. And know this: Hitler was as effective, as spell binding, as enthralling a speaker and propagandist as Houston was a singer. "Share my life, take me for what I am/ 'cause I'll never change all my colors for you/ Take my love, I'll never ask for much/ Just all that you are and everything that you do." And the needy, aspiring, leaderless Misch sings back "Don't make me close one more door/ I don't wanna hurt anymore" and on this mutually fulfilling basis, they cut the great deal that provides Hitler with another absolutely loyal follower and Misch a hero to believe in and dedicate his hitherto empty and pathetic life to... right up to and including the last day of his long life, just the other day. This story of master and abject follower might easily have gone untold, so common is it in its essentials but two things happened to lift it from obscurity to fascinating, enigmatic prominence. On September 1,1939 Hitler invaded Poland. Misch was among the forward troops. While arranging for the surrender of a fort near Warsaw he was seriously injured. Sent back to Germany, he was in May 1940 selected as one of just two SS men to be Hitler's personal bodyguard and personal assistant, his life now lived in the closest proximity to the arbiter of life or death for millions worldwide. Here the story evolves to something of the most importance, the greatest possible interest, one that baffles, perplexes, confounds... but not for the reason you may suppose, not that is for what Misch knew and confided to the ages... but rather, paradoxically, for what he failed to know, never wanted to know and thus could not tell. "A very normal man." For people like me, people interested in historical truth, Misch's very name produces acute indignation and disgust, so close to power, so unable to see its manifestations, people, uses, events. How one longs for one of the great diarists of history... eyes that would see more in Hitler than "the boss", "a very normal man", a judgement of breathtaking insipidity, so monumentally wrong, as to generate immediate contempt in place of insight. Misch, however, is adamant... "He was no brute. He was no monster. He was no superman." How could he be so astonishingly imperceptive, seeing neither forest nor trees? Here we see Hitler's genius at work, for genius he was, though of dark powers and darker deeds. A more perceptive man, distinguished by acuity and discernment would not have suited der fuehrer at all... someone who saw him as the German equivalent of Dale Carnegie able to make friends and influence people did the job nicely... and, for the nonce, saved Misch's life over and over again. Hitler didn't order his immediate execution when he discovered Misch's biographical notes and materials, for there were no such notes and materials, at any time. He was not shot by the Gestapo, as he thought he might be, because he had witnessed the events surrounding the suicides of Eva Braun, who became Mrs. Adolph as the vengeful Russians raced to capture Berlin, her face blue from ingesting cyanide and her groom, shot with his own gun, slumped over, blood dripping out of the right temple, both now ready to be burned and so be spared the humiliations visited upon il duce and his mistress by a people expert in indignities and eager to demonstrate their crude ingenuity. Finally, he was not shot by the Russians who captured him and after the German surrender May 7, 1945, sent him to Russia. He returned to Berlin in 1954, alive, the man at the center of power who was simply beneath anyone's notice, not worth the trouble of killing. There he reunited with his wife, whom he had married in 1942. Two survivors, their very ordinariness more protection than armor, perhaps the luckiest couple on Earth. Together they opened a small shop, where each day they forgot a little more... and lived another day in an obscurity richly earned and deserved; cheating all of us and history, too... but alive. |
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