“I can see that you’re shocked,” she said. “Even though you staged those public demonstrations against the Jews, I realize that was to force the Nazi Party’s emigration policy through. I detest that policy, but it wasn’t murder.”
“Dear,” I said, trying to keep my voice even, “what you are telling me is nothing more than thoroughly discredited Allied propaganda. We shot Jewish Partisans, but there’s no evidence of systematic—”
“There is now,” she said, and I believe that my jaw dropped at the revelation. She went on, oblivious to my horror: “The records that were kept for those camps are all forgeries. A separate set of records, detailing the genocide, has been uncovered by the League.”
What a damnably stupid German thing to do. To keep records of everything. I knew it had to be true. It was as if my daughter disappeared from the room at that second. I could still see her, but only in a fuzzy way. A far more solid form stood between us, the image of the man who had been my life. It was as if the ghost of Adolf Hitler stood before me then, in our common distress, in our common deed. I could hear his voice and remember my promise to him. Oh God, it was my own daughter who was to provide the test. I really had not the least desire to see her eliminated. I liked her.
What I said next was not entirely in keeping with my feigned ignorance, and if she had been less upset she might have noticed the implications of my remark as I asked her: “Hilda, how many people have you told?”
She answered without hesitation. “Only members of the League and now you.” I heaved a sigh of relief.
“Don’t you think it would be a good idea to keep this extreme theory to yourself?” I asked.
“It’s no theory. It’s a fact. And I have no intention of advertising this. It would make me a target for those lunatics in the SS.”
So that was the Burgundy connection! I still didn’t see why I should be in any danger during my trip to Burgundy. Even if I were innocent of the truth—which every SS official knew to be absurd, since I was an architect of our policy—my sheer prominence in the Nazi Party would keep me safe from harm in Burgundy.
I asked my daughter what this fancy of hers had to do with my impending trip. “Only everything,” she answered.
“Are you afraid that they will suspect I’ve learned of this so-called secret, which is nothing more than patent nonsense to begin with?”
She surprised me by answering, “No.” There was an executioner’s silence.
“What then?” I asked.
“It is not this crime of the past that endangers you,” came the sound of her voice in portentous tones. “It is a crime of the future.”
“You should have been the poet of the family.”
“If you go to Burgundy, you risk your life. They are planning a new crime against humanity that will make World War II and the concentration camps, on both the Allied and Axis sides, seem like nothing but a prelude. And you will be one of the first victims!”
Never have I felt more acutely the pain of a father for his offspring. I could not help but conclude that my youngest daughter’s mind had only a tenuous connection to reality. Her political activities must be to blame! On the other hand I regarded Hilda with a genuine affection. She seemed concerned for my welfare in a manner I supposed would not apply to a stranger. The decadent creed she had embraced had not led to any disaffection from her father.
I thought back to the grand old days of intrigue within the Party and the period in the war years when I referred most often to that wise advice of Machiavelli: “Cruelties should be committed all at once, as in that way each separate one is less felt, and gives less offense.” We had come perilously close to Götterdämmerung then, but in the end our policy proved sound. I was beyond all that. The state was secure, Europe was secure… and the only conceivable threat to my safety would come from foreign sources. Yet here was Hilda, her face a mixture of concern and anger and—perhaps love? She was telling me to beware the Burgundians. She had as much as accused them of plotting against the Reich itself!
I remember how they had invited me to one of the conferences to decide the formation of the new nation of Burgundy. Those were hectic times in the postwar period. As Gauleiter of Berlin (one of the Führer’s few appointments of that title of which I always approved) I had been primarily concerned with Speer’s work to build New Berlin. The film industry was flowering under my personal supervision, I was busy writing my memoirs, and I was involved heavily with diplomatic projects. I hadn’t really given Burgundy much thought. I knew that it had been a country in medieval times, and had read a little about the Duchy of Burgundy. I remembered that the historical country had traded in grain, wines, and finished wool.
They announced at the conference that the historical Burgundy would be restored, encompassing the area to the south of Champagne, east of Bourbonais, and north and west of Savoy. There was some debate on whether or not to restore the original place-names or else borrow from Wagner to create a series of new ones. In the end the latter camp won out. The capital was named Tarnhelm, after the magic helmet in the Nibelungenlied that could change the wearer into a variety of shapes.
Hitler did not officially single out any of the departments that made up the SS: Waffen, Death’s Head, or General SS. We in his entourage realized, however, that the gift was to those members of the inner circle who had been most intimately involved with both the ideological and practical side of the extermination program. The true believers! Given the Reich’s policy of secrecy, there was no need to blatantly advertise the reasons for the gift. Himmler, as Reichsführer of the SS and Hitler’s adviser on racial matters, was naturally instrumental in this transfer of power to the new nation. His rival, Rosenberg, met his death.
The officials who would oversee the creation of Burgundy were carefully selected. Their mission was to make certain that Burgundy became a unique nation in all of Europe, devoted to certain chivalric values of the past, and the formation of pure Aryan specimens. It was nothing more than the logical extension of our propaganda, the secularizing of the myths and legends with which we had kept the people fed during the dark days of lost hope. The final result was a picturesque fairy-tale kingdom that made its money almost entirely out of the tourist trade. America loves to boast of its amusement parks but it has nothing to match this.
Hilda interrupted my reverie by asking me in a voice bordering on sternness: “Well, what are you going to do?”
“Unless you make sense, I will continue on my journey to Tarnhelm to see Helmuth.” He was living at the headquarters of the SS leaders, the territory that was closed off to outsiders, even during the tourist season. Yet it was by no means unusual for occasional visitors from New Berlin to be invited there. My daughter’s melodramatics had not yet given cause to worry. All I could think of was how I’d like to get my hands around the throat of whoever put these idiotic notions in her pretty head.
She was visibly distressed, but in control. She tossed her hair back and said, “I am not sure that the proof I have to offer will be sufficient to convince you.”
“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?” I asked. “You haven’t even made a concrete accusation yet! Drop this pose. Tell me what you think constitutes the danger.”
“They think you’re a traitor,” she said.
“What?” I was astounded to hear such words from anyone for any reason. “To Germany?”
“No,” she answered. “To the true Nazi ideal.”
I laughed. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m one of the key—”