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He got a hand. Susa
"We need to know ourselves as well," the Fuhrer said, after showing he didn't know himself so well even if he could sound like Marcus Aurelius. Would a Roman Emperor count as an Aryan? Probably not, not when he'd been fighting Germans along the Danube while he wrote the Meditations. Buckliger continued, "And the best way to know ourselves is to tell ourselves the truth.
"We ca
"This being so," he went on, "I am calling new elections to the Reichstag, voting to take place on Sunday, July 10. All seats are to be contested. Candidates need not be members of the Party, so long as they are of Aryan blood and good character. Ballots will be secret. There will be no penalty for voting one's conscience. I have not the slightest particle of doubt that the best will prevail. And the Volk and the Reich will be better for it."
The ovation this time was hesitant, as if the Fuhrer 's audience was not sure whether it was allowed to cheer. That didn't surprise Susa
"We National Socialists have ruled Germany wisely and well for many years," Buckliger said. "I have faith that the Volk will recognize our service and give us the large majority in the Reichstag we deserve."
Loud, confident applause rang out. Of course people knew they were safe clapping after the Fuhrer praised the Nazis. Susa
Did Buckliger really believe the Nazis had ruled Germany well and wisely? They'd won, thanks in no small measure to Hitler's demonic energy and Himmler's grim ruthlessness. But the blood of the people they'd murdered-the blood of the peoples they'd murdered-still cried out from the grave…and from the crematorium for those millions who'd never got a grave.
"I know reform, revitalization, ca
Those who call for everything to be perfect by tomorrow are naive. But those who say nothing needs repair are willfully blind. Change is part of life. It is here. It will go forward. And it will succeed."
He got another big hand. Susa
Most people would say,What do you think you're doing, trying to guess along with the Fuhrer?Susa
Besides, up till the time when Buckliger became Fuhrer, politics in the Reich had been not only appalling but, worse yet, bloody dull. Some of the things that went on were still appalling. But only someone who was deaf and blind would have called them dull. And when things were interesting, how could younot try to guess what would happen next?
Outside, the applause went on and on, though the Fuhrer didn't say anything more. Susa
In the meantime…In the meantime, she still had her essays to grade. They would have been there even if Kurt Haldweim were still Fuhrer. In a lot of ways, life went on in spite of politics.
And, in a lot of ways, it didn't. How many lives had the politics of the Reich snuffed out? Too many. Millions and millions too many. What did undergraduate essays matter, with that in the back of her mind?
But her life had to go on, no matter what the Reich had done. Shaking her head, she picked up a red pen and got back to work.
A day like any other day. That was how Heinrich Gimpel remembered it afterwards. It could have been any Tuesday. The kids were ru
Blackbirds on lawns tugged at worms as Heinrich walked up the street toward the bus stop. The sun shone brightly. Spring was really here now. He couldn't recall any other spring that had seemed so hopeful, so cheerful. Was that Mother Nature's fault or Heinz Buckliger's? Heinrich didn't know. He didn't much care, either. He would enjoy the moment for as long as it lasted.
He waited at the bus stop for a few minutes, then got on the bus for the Stahnsdorf train station. Three stops later, Willi Dorsch got on, too. He sat down next to Heinrich."Guten Morgen," he said.
"Same to you," Heinrich answered."Wie geht's?"
"It's been better," Willi said. "I have to tell you, though, it's been worse, too. Erika's been…kind of cheerful lately." He looked this way and that, a comic show of suspicion. "I wonder what she's up to."
"Heh," Heinrich said uneasily. As far as he could tell, Erika had never said anything to Willi about what had happened at her sister's house on Burggrafen-Strasse-or about any of the several things that might have happened there but hadn't. He supposed he should have been grateful. Hewas grateful. But he was also suspicious, and his suspicion had no comic edge to it.
When the bus got to the Stahnsdorf station, he and Willi bought their copies of the Volkischer Beobachter and carried them out to the platform. They climbed aboard the train up to Berlin, sat down together, and started reading the morning news. Almost as if they'd rehearsed it, they simultaneously pointed to the same story below the fold on the front page.
STOLLE ANNOUNCES CANDIDACY, the headline said. There was a small head shot of the Gauleiter of Berlin just below the line of big black type. The story, as bald as any Heinrich had ever seen in the Beobachter, a
"Can he do that?" Heinrich said, and then, "How can he do that? He's already Gauleiter." The puzzle offended his sense of order.
But Willi had the answer: "Gauleiter's a Party office.Reichstag member would be a state office. He could hold both at once."
"You're right," Heinrich said wonderingly. The National Socialist Party and the Reich were as closely intertwined as a pair of lovers-or as a tree and a strangler fig. But they weren't quite one and the same.