John Ringo: Watch on the Rhine

“They were not always old men,” answered one of the legislators. “When young, as you propose to make them again, and when armed and organized, as you propose to make them again, they were a menace, fiends, thugs, criminals… murderers.”

“Not all of them,” the chancellor insisted. “Perhaps not even most. Some were drafted into the war. Others found no place in the Reichswehr and went, as soldiers will, to whichever military organization they could find that would accept them. And I intend that no one, not even one, who has been convicted, or even reliably accused, of a war crime or a crime against humanity shall be permitted to join.”

“They were all guilty of crimes against humanity,” the legislator returned. “Every one of them who fought in the unjust war this country waged against an innocent world were guilty.”

“Were this true,” said the chancellor, mildly, “then equally guilty would be Heinz Guderian, Erich Manstein, Erwin Rommel, or Gerd von Rundstedt. They actually did the higher level planning for that war. The people I propose to bring back were low-level players indeed compared to those famous and admired German soldiers.”

“They murdered prisoners!” shrieked another legislator.

“In that war everyone murdered prisoners.”

And so it went, seemingly endlessly. Opponents spoke up; the chancellor answered mildly. Proponents spoke up, usually mildly, and opponents shrieked with fury. In the end it came to a vote… and that vote was very close.

All eyes turned to the ashen-faced Annemarie Mai as she mounted the speaker’s rostrum. The tie was hers to break, one way or the other. With the images of split children’s skulls echoing in her brain she announced, “I have conditions.”

“Conditions?” asked the chancellor.

“Several,” she nodded. “First, these people are the bearers of a disease, a political disease. They must be quarantined to ensure they do not spread their disease.”

“To get any use out of them, I have to use them as a cadre for others.”

“I understand that,” Annemarie answered. “But that group, once filled up to the military body you desire, must be kept as isolated as possible lest the disease spread beyond our ability to control.”

“Then we are agreed,” the chancellor said.

“Second, they must be watched.”

“They will be,” the chancellor agreed.

“Third, they must not be allowed to preach their political creed, even in secret.”

“The laws against the spread of Nazi propaganda remain in effect and have served us well for decades.”

“Fourth, you must use them, burn them up, including, I am sorry to say, the young ones we condemn to their ‘care.’ ”

“That much I can guarantee. ”

“Then, I vote yes. Raise your formation, Chancellor.”

The peace of the assembly immediately erupted into bitter shouts and curses.

There is peace in senility, for some. For others, the weakening of the mind with old age brings back harsher memories.

Few or none in the nursing home knew just how old the old man was, though, had anyone cared to check, the information was there in his file. Among some of the staff it was rumored he was past one hundred, yet few or none of them cared enough to check that either. Though he was almost utterly bald, shriveled and shrunken and sometimes demented, none of the staff cared about that. The old man spoke but rarely and even more rarely did he seem to speak with understanding. Sometimes, at night, the watch nurse would hear him cry from his room with words like, “ Vorwärts , Manfred… Hold them, meine Brüdern …” or “ Steisse, die Panzer .”

Sometimes, too, the old man would cry a name softly, whisper with regret, hum a few bars of some long-forgotten, perhaps even forbidden, tune.

It was whispered, by those who washed him and those who spoke with the washers, that he had a tattooed number on his torso. They whispered too of the scars, the burns, the puckermarks.

Everyday, rain or shine, bundled up or not as the weather dictated, the staff wheeled the old man out onto the nursing home’s porch for a bit of fresh air. This day, the fresh air was cold and heavy, laden with the moisture of falling snow. What dreams or nightmares the cold snow brought, none ever knew — the old man never said.

At the front door to the home, a matron pointed towards the old man. “There he is.”

Another man, one of a pair, clad in the leather trench coat that marked him as a member of the Bundesnachrichtendiest — the Federal Information Service, Germany’s CIA — answered, “We shall take care of him from here on out. You and your home need trouble yourselves no further.”

Unseen, the matron nodded. Alles war in ordnung. All was in order . Already the two men had turned their backs on her and focused their attention fully on the old man. They walked up to him, one crouching before the wheelchair, the other standing at the side.

The croucher, he in the trenchcoat, spoke softly. “ Herr Gruppenführer? Gruppenführer Mühlenkampf? I do not know if you can understand me. But if you can, you are coming with us.”

Some faint trace of recognition seemed to dawn in the old man’s watery, faded blue eyes.

“Aha,” said trench coat. “You can understand me, can’t you? Understand your name and your old rank anyway. Very good. Can you understand this, old man? Your country is calling for you again. We have need of you, urgent need.”

And my, my don’t those two seem urgent , mused the patron of the gasthaus nestled in an alley not far from where that patron lived. As was his normal practice, the patron sat in a dim corner, nursing a beer. And when will the Gestapo, under whatever name they chose to go by, realize that those coats mark them for what they are as clearly as my Sigrunen — the twin lightning bolts — used to mark me.

The objects of the patron’s attention walked from table to table, from customer to customer. The Wirt, the owner and manager of the establishment, looked discreetly at the elderly man, dimly lit in a corner. Shall I tell them?

The patron shrugged. Machts nichts. “Matters not”. You know what they are as well as I do. If they want me they will find me.

Nodding his understanding the Wirt called to the two. “If you are looking for Herr Brasche, that’s him over there in the corner.”

The patron, Brasche, watched with interest as the two men approached. When they had reached his table, he raised his beer in salute. “And what can I do for the BND today, gentlemen?”

“Hans Brasche?” one of them asked, flashing an identification.

“That would be me,” Hans answered.

“You must come with us.”

Brasche smiled. If he was afraid, neither of the men who had accosted him, nor any of the other patrons, would have known it. He had never been a man, or a boy, to show much fear.

Times were hard and getting worse. The calendar on the wall said 1930. As the boy entered the bare cupboarded kitchen, the expression on the mother’s face fairly shrieked “fear.”

“Your father wants you, Hansi.”

The boy, he could not have been more than ten, suppressed a shudder. This was always bad news. He steeled his soul, raised his ten-year-old head, and walked bravely to where his one-armed father — more importantly, the father’s belt — awaited him. He knew he could not cry out, could not show fear; else the beating would be worse, much worse.