Todd Pliss: American Reich

“No more outbursts,” von Helldorf raised his voice and whacked Wayne in the face with his metal club.

Like water from a faucet that had been turned on, blood began to pour down from Wayne’s mouth as his gums bled profusely. Wayne, right there and then, fully wanted to die. With no more time machine and no more Dr. Hoffmann, there was no more hope.

Wayne was handcuffed, hauled out of the science building, and tossed into a waiting Gestapo paddy wagon.

In the bare Gestapo jail cell, Erich had been listening skeptically to Wayne’s tale.

“So, there you have it,” his cellmate said upon finishing the telling of his long story. “You wanted to know how I ended up in this shithole and now I’ve told you. I hope you’re happy.”

The cellmates heard the clank of the cellblock’s bulky, steel entrance door as it opened. SS Captain von Helldorf and three of his men approached the indigent cell.

“Ah, at last the time is here,” von Helldorf snickered. “Your day of judgment, my friend, has arrived.”

Wayne shot back, “I’m not your friend, dirt bag.”

Von Helldorf returned, “Watching you hang in public will be delightful. Did he give you any information?”

“Nothing that made any sense,” Erich, suddenly speaking in a pronounced German accent. “Just some bullshit tale that he made up.”

He slapped Wayne hard, “That is for lying to me.”

The cell door was unlocked. Wayne was roughly escorted out of the cubical.

His hands handcuffed together painfully behind his back, Wayne was dragged by the Gestapo through the crowd lined streets that led into Grunder Platz . Citizens booed and the Hitler Youth pelted him with raw eggs and stones. An orchestra played German national music.

Wayne remained numb to what was happening around him until, out of the corner of his eye, amongst the sea of Germans, he caught someone’s eye.

“LAUREN, LAUREN! IT’S ME, WAYNE,” he cried out. The pretty, blond woman didn’t recognize him — they’d never met. Wayne broke down and babbled like a madman, “Lauren, don’t tell me that you’re a part of this fuckin’ nightmare! LAUREN…”

The girl, who had a petite silver swastika pinned to her sweater, turned to her friend and said, “That guy really is insane.” She hurled a stone at the prisoner, hitting him in the groin.

A gallows had been set up, to give an excellent view to all spectators, in the center of Grunder Platz , beside the large, pompous Adolf Hitler statue. Wayne would be perfect entertainment and propaganda tool for Victory Day.

Von Helldorf, well known to be populace of New Berlin City, had his prized possession placed in the middle of the gallows. Reich Marshal Ulrich and prominent provincial leaders stood beaming in front of the hanging apparatus. Führer Göring had earlier, from the German capital of Berlin, rhetorically spoken the words of his grandiose Victory Day commemorative speech. Later, in the evening, there would be the annual, dazzling display of fireworks.

The masses of citizens quieted down when Reich Marshal Ulrich stepped up to the microphone of the public address system that had been set up for him as the city’s Grand Marshal of the Victory Day celebrations. “What you see here,” he said “my good people, is what the scum of our society looks like.” The vast quantity of the men, women, and children that made up his audience contemptuously hissed.

He continued to play on the crowd’s agitation, “This type of disobedient scum must be eliminated from the Reich. For crimes committed against the Reich in a manner that endangered your lives and the lives and well being of all fine citizens of the Fatherland, and for his betrayal of the Führer’s ideals, this swine has forfeited his right to live.”

Ulrich, with a steel baton, struck the prisoner in the gut, causing him to double over in pain. The crowd roared its approval and applauded. Children of all ages, including some that still wore diapers, enthusiastically waved their little swastika flags in the air. The pretty girl that the captive thought he once knew clapped her hands together, as if applauding the performers in a superb play that had taken the stage one more time for an encore.

Ulrich paused, purposely letting the audience’s anticipation for his next sentence build. Finally, he said fervently, “I hereby sentence this filthy swine to death by hanging. To be carried out on this day here in Grunder Platz .” The sun’s bright rays bounced off his hairless head.

The crowd of Aryans cheered and began to repeatedly chant, “DIE, SCUM!”

“Herr von Helldorf,” Ulrich spoke as he signaled to the SS Captain to proceed with the amusement.

The SS Captain placed the noose around his foe’s neck. He got in Wayne’s face and said, “So long, you piece of shit.”

Wayne, his raw gums giving him a constant taste of his own blood, said, “At least I won’t spend eternity rotting in hell.”

“Every man creates his own hell,” von Helldorf solemnly said. “You are about to enter yours.” He pointed a finger at the orchestra’s drummer. The drummer started playing an upbeat drumroll and the career SS Captain stepped back from his prize catch of the week.

The audience’s chanting became progressively stronger, “DIE, SCUM! DIE SCUM! DIE SCUM!”

Wayne looked out amongst the ocean of Nazi followers and felt pity and sorrow for them all. They didn’t know any better; they couldn’t have. Wayne caught a glimpse of one boy who chanted for his execution with an ardent, almost inhuman zeal. It was for the children that Wayne felt the deepest regret. The string of sweat that covered his once handsome face made his skin sparkle. He heard a Gestapo man take a hold of the gallows’ release cord. He had never been one for religion, and he thought no more of it standing there on the gallows with the noose tightly wrapped around his neck. What kind of Supreme Being would have let the world become what it has? The gallows’ trap door was released; the prisoner’s body dropped. The noose performed its deadly task for the Reich. Wayne’s last earthly thought was of his parents.

Wayne Goldberg, United States Army Private stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, jolted awake on the soft bed in his room on the seventh floor of the Kanter Special Units Building in a cold sweat, screaming in horror. He glanced in the direction of the unplugged television set against the wall; in his mind’s eye it broadcast a black and white documentary on the training techniques of Hitler’s elite soldiers, the Waffen-SS. Private Goldberg, dressed only in his underwear, scrambled out of bed, repeated the words, “NO, NO, NO!” and, with a running start, jumped through the room’s one window, shattering it.

Major Richard L. Smith and First Lieutenant Irwin H. Collins woken out of their deep sleeps by a code four emergency. They arrived at the Kanter Special Units Building within five minutes of one another. Standing outside of the nine-story building, with their heads tilted up, the military officers gazed at a broken window seven stories above them. Four yards away from where they stood, a limp body lay in silence.

“That makes what, three suicides out of fifteen control subjects?” Major Smith weighed the numbers in his head.

“That’s right,” First Lieutenant Collins conceded, his short gray hair immaculately combed. “Three suicides. One out of five.”

“It is a good thing that only orphans were handpicked for this experiment,” the Major said. “Or else my job might be a whole hell of a lot more difficult.”

“Sir, wasn’t this a bizarre experiment, even for the Army?” Collins inquired, not sure if he was overstepping his bounds by asking a superior such a question, but curious just the same. “I mean, sir, to take fifteen young privates and put them through the rigorous training regiment that the Germans used during World War Two to train their superior fighters, their Death’s Head units. To make each private train, eat, and learn to think and act like a Death’s Head soldier. To even make these men watch documentaries on them at every free moment.”