The Storyteller (16 page)

By 1935, when I was already a young man, Germany had left the League of Nations. Hitler announced that Germany would be rebuilding its army, which had been forbidden after the first Great War. Of course, had any other country—France, England—stepped in and stopped him, what happened might not have happened. But who wanted to go back to war that quickly? It was easier just to rationalize what was happening, to say he was only taking back what had once belonged to Germany. And in the meantime, in my country, there were jobs again—factories for munitions and guns and planes. People were not making as much money as they used to, and they were working longer hours, but they were able to support their families. By 1939, the German
Lebensraum
extended through the Saar,
the Rhineland, Austria, the Sudetenland, and the Czech lands. And finally, when the Germans moved into Danzig, Poland, the English and French declared war.

I will tell you a little bit about myself as a boy. My parents desperately wanted their children to have a better life than they had—and the answer, they believed, was in education. Surely people who had learned how to invest better would not have found themselves in such dire financial straits. Although I wasn’t particularly bright, my parents wanted me to test into
Gymnasium,
the most academic education possible in Germany, the one whose graduates were university-bound. Of course, once there, I was always picking fights or clowning around, anything to hide the fact that I was in way over my head. My parents would be called into school weekly to see the headmaster, because I had failed another test, or because I’d come to blows with another student in the hall over a petty dispute.

Luckily, my parents had another star to hitch their wagon to—my brother, Franz. Two years younger than me, Franz was studious, his head always buried in a book. He would scribble away in notebooks that he hid underneath his mattress and that I would routinely steal to embarrass him. They were full of images I did not understand: a girl floating in an autumn pond, drowned because of a lost love; a deer hollowed by hunger picking through the snow for a single acorn; a fire that started in a soul and consumed the body, the bedding, the house surrounding it. He dreamed of studying poetry at Heidelberg, and my parents dreamed with him.

And then, one day, things began to change. At
Gymnasium,
there was a contest to see which class could first get 100 percent participation in the Hitler-Jugend. In 1934, joining the Hitler Youth was not mandatory yet, mind you. It was a social club, like your Boy Scouts, except we also swore allegiance to Hitler as his future soldiers. Under the guidance of adult leaders, we would meet after school, and go camping on weekends. We wore uniforms that looked like those the SS wore, with the Sig Rune on the lapel. I, who at age fifteen chafed at sitting at a desk, loved being outside. I excelled at
the sports competitions. I had a reputation for being a bully, but that was not necessarily fair—half of the time I was beating someone to a pulp because he had called Franz a sissy.

I desperately wanted my class to win. Not because I had any great allegiance to the Führer but because the local leader of the HJ
Kameradschaft
was Herr Sollemach, whose daughter, Inge, was the prettiest girl I had ever seen. She looked like an ice queen, with her silver-blond hair and her pale blue eyes; and she and her friends did not know I existed. This, I realized, was an opportunity to change that.

For the competition, the teacher put everyone’s names on the board, erasing those of the boys who joined the HJ, one by one. There were some who joined out of peer pressure; some who joined because their fathers said they had to. There were more than a dozen, however, who joined because I threatened to pound them in the school yard if they did not.

My brother refused to join the Hitler-Jugend. In his classroom, he and one other boy were the only ones who didn’t. We all knew why Artur Goldman did not join—he
could
not. When I asked Franz why he would align himself with a Jew, he said he didn’t want his friend Artur to feel like he was being left out.

A few weeks later, Artur stopped going to school and never came back. My father encouraged Franz to join the Hitler-Jugend, too, to make new friends. My mother made me promise to watch over him at our meetings. “Franz,” she would say, “isn’t strong like you.” She worried about him camping out in the woods, getting sick too easily, not connecting with the other boys.

But for the first time in her life, she didn’t have to worry about
me.
Because as it turned out, I was the poster child for the Hitler-Jugend.

We would hike and sing and do calisthenics. We learned how to line up in military formations. My favorite activity was
Wehrsport
—military marching, bayonet drills, grenade throwing, trench digging, crawling through barbed wire. It made me feel like a soldier already. I had such enthusiasm for the Hitler-Jugend that Herr Sollemach
told my father I would make a fine SS man one day. Was there any greater compliment?

To find the strongest among us, there were also
Mutproben,
tests of courage. Even individuals who were afraid would be compelled to do what we were told to do, because otherwise the stigma of being a coward would cling to you like a stench. Our first test was climbing the rock wall at the castle, without any safety harness. Some of the older boys scrambled to be in the front of the line, but Franz held back and I stayed with him, as per my mother’s orders. When one of the boys fell and broke his leg, the training was aborted.

A week later, as part of our tests of courage, Herr Sollemach blindfolded the group of us. Franz, sitting next to me, held tightly on to my hand. “Reiner,” he whispered, “I’m scared.”

“Just do what they say,” I told him, “and it will be over soon.”

I had come to see a beautiful liberation in this new way of thinking—which was, ironically, not having to think for myself. At
Gymnasium
I wasn’t clever enough to come up with the right answer. In Hitler-Jugend, I was told the right answer, and as long as I parroted it back I was considered a genius.

We sat in this artificial dark, awaiting instructions. Herr Sollemach and some of the older boys patrolled in front of us. “If the Führer asks you to fight for Germany, what do you do?”

Fight!
we all yelled.

“If the Führer asks you to die for Germany, what do you do?”

Die!

“What do you fear?”

Nothing!

“Stand up!” The older boys pulled us to our feet, in a line. “You will be led inside the building to a swimming pool with no water in it, and you will recite the Hitler-Jugend oath and jump off the diving board.” Herr Sollemach paused. “If the Führer asks you to jump off a cliff, what do you do?”

Jump!

We were blindfolded, so we did not know which of the fifteen
of us would be pulled to the diving board first. Until, that is, I felt Franz’s hand being torn away from mine.

“Reiner!” he cried.

I suppose at that moment I was thinking of nothing but my mother, warning me to take care of my younger brother. I stood up and yanked off my blindfold and ran like crazy past the boys who were dragging my brother into the building.
“Ich gelobe meinem Führer Adolf Hitler Treue,”
I cried, streaking past Herr Sollemach.
“Ich verspreche ihm und den Führern, die er mir bestimmt, jederzeit Achtung und Gehorsam entgegen zu bringen
 . . .”

I promise to be faithful to my Führer, Adolf Hitler. I promise to him, and to those leaders he has assigned to me, to give them my undivided obedience and respect. In the presence of this blood banner, which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the savior of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God.

And without looking, I leaped.

 • • • 

Wrapped in a coarse brown blanket, my clothes still soaking, I told Herr Sollemach that I was jealous of my brother for being chosen first to prove his allegiance and courage. That was why I had cut him in line.

There was water in the pool. Not much, but enough. I knew they could not let us all jump and kill ourselves. But since each of us was being brought into the building individually, we could not hear the splash.

I knew, however, that Franz would, because he was already at the edge of the pool. And that, then, he would be able to jump.

But Herr Sollemach was less convinced. “It is admirable to love your brother,” he said to me. “But not more than your Führer.”

I was careful the rest of that day to avoid Franz. Instead I played Trapper and Indian with abandon. We split up into platoons based
on the colors of our armbands and hunted down the enemy to rip off
their
armbands. Often, these games escalated into full-on brawls; they were meant to toughen us up. Instead of protecting my brother, I ignored him. If he was trampled in the dirt, I wasn’t going to pick him up. Herr Sollemach was watching too closely.

Franz wound up with a split lip and bruises up and down his left leg, a nasty scrape on his cheek. My mother would hold me accountable, I knew. And still, when we were walking back home at dusk, he bumped his shoulder against mine. I remember the cobblestones on the street were still warm, from the heat of the day; there was a rising full moon that night. “Reiner,” he said simply.
“Danke.”

 • • • 

The next Sunday we met at an athletic hall and squared off in boxing matches. The idea was to crown a winner from our group of fifteen boys. Herr Sollemach had brought Inge and her friends to watch, because he knew that boys would show off even more if girls were present. The winner, he said, would get a special medal. “The Führer says that a physically healthy individual with a sound character is more valuable to the
völkisch
community than an intellectual weakling,” Herr Sollemach said. “Are you that healthy individual?”

One part of me was healthy, I knew that much. I could feel it every time I looked at Inge Sollemach. Her lips were pink as ribbon candy, and I bet just as sweet. When she sat down on the bleachers, I watched the rise and fall of the buttons on her cardigan. I thought about peeling back those layers to touch skin, how she would be white as milk, soft as—

“Hartmann,” Herr Sollemach barked, and both Franz and I stood. This surprised him for a moment, and then a smile spread across his face. “Yes, yes, why not?” he muttered. “Both of you, into the ring.”

I looked at Franz, at his narrow shoulders and his tender belly, at the dreams in his eyes that scattered when he realized what Herr Sollemach wanted us to do. I climbed between the ropes and put on
the padded helmet, the boxing gloves. As I passed by my brother, I murmured,
Hit me.

Inge rang the bell to get us started and then ran back to her girlfriends. One of them pointed at me, and she looked up. For one amazing moment the world stood perfectly still while our eyes met. “Come on,” Herr Sollemach urged. The rest of the boys were cheering, and still I circled Franz with my hands up.

“Hit me,” I muttered under my breath again.

“I can’t.”

“Schwächling!”
one of the older boys yelled. Stop acting like a girl!

Halfheartedly, I shot out my right fist into my brother’s chest. All the air rushed out of his body as he jackknifed. There was a cheer from the boys behind me.

Franz looked up at me in fear. “Fight back,” I yelled at him. I jabbed with my gloves, pulling my punches before I could make contact with his body again.

“What are you waiting for?” Herr Sollemach screamed.

So I punched Franz, hard, in the back. He fell to one knee, and there was a gasp from the girls in the bleachers. Then he managed to drag himself upright. He pulled back his left fist and threw a punch at my jaw.

I do not know what flipped the switch in me. I suppose it was the fact that I had been struck, and was in pain. Or maybe the girls watching, whom I wanted to impress. Maybe it was just the sound of the other boys egging me on. I started beating Franz, in the face, the gut, the kidneys. Over and over, rhythmically, until his face was a bloody pulp and spit bubbled out of his mouth as he collapsed on the floor.

One of the older boys jumped into the ring and raised my glove, the conquering champion. Herr Sollemach patted me on the back. “This,” he told the others, “is the face of bravery. This is what the future of Germany looks like. Adolf Hitler,
Sieg Heil!
”

I returned the salute. So did all the other boys. Except my brother.

With adrenaline pumping through my veins, I felt invincible. I took on contender after contender, and everyone fell. After years of being punished for letting my temper get the best of me in school, I was being praised for it. No, I was being
exalted.

That night, Inge Sollemach gave me a medal, and fifteen minutes later, behind the athletic center, my first real kiss. The next day my father called on Herr Sollemach. He was very disturbed by Franz’s injuries.

Your son is gifted,
Herr Sollemach explained.
Special.

Yes,
my father responded.
Franz has always been an excellent student.

I am speaking of Reiner,
Herr Sollemach said.

Did I know this brutality was wrong? Even that first time, when my brother was the victim? I have asked myself a thousand times, and the answer is always the same: of course. That day was the hardest, because I could have said no. Every time after that, it became easier, because if I didn’t do it again, I would be reminded of that first time I did not say no. Repeat the same action over and over again, and eventually it will feel right. Eventually, there isn’t even any guilt.

What I mean to tell you, now, is that the same truth holds. This could be you, too. You think
never
. You think,
not I
. But at any given moment, we are capable of doing what we least expect. I always knew what I was doing, and to whom I was doing it. I knew, very well. Because in those terrible, wonderful moments, I was the person everyone wanted to be.