Ben Elton - Two Brothers

That’s right, Frieda thought. We must all keep trying to walk upright. It was what Wolfgang told the boys. If you want to feel tall, you have to walk tall.

The phone rang as Herr Tauber reached for it.

‘Stengel residence,’ he said. ‘Tauber speaking.’

After a moment he turned back into the room.

‘It is Herr Fischer,’ he said, ‘of Fischer’s department store. He is enquiring after his daughter Dagmar.’

AFTER THEIR DAUGHTER’S flight from the front of the department store, Herr and Frau Fischer were forced by the SA gang to remain on their knees on the pavement for some ten minutes longer.

Collecting torn shreds of Herr Fischer’s vandalized ‘discount’ banner and licking the paving stones until both of them thought they would choke to death.

‘Some water please,’ Frau Fischer croaked, looking upwards at the boys standing over her, who were young enough to have been her sons.

‘What was that, old sow?’ one laughed. ‘Can’t you speak German? I can’t understand you.’

Frau Fischer’s tongue was swollen up and her mouth was filled with grit and dust. She struggled once more to speak.

‘Water, please, for pity’s sake.’

But there was no pity to be had. Her tormentors would have argued that it was not that they lacked heart or conscience, but simply that Jews did not deserve pity. Their crimes were too terrible and their natures too sly. Heartless cruelty towards such Untermenschen was the stern duty of a German patriot.

Only that week in an editorial in the Völkischer Beobachter Herr Goebbels had warned specifically against the temptation to show pity, reminding decent Germans that such weakness was in fact not just weak foolishness, but treason. The Minister of Propaganda pointed out that the cousins of the poor old Jew granny appealing for help in Berlin were sitting in Washington and Moscow, rubbing their hands together with glee and plotting the annihilation of European civilization.

Therefore Frau Fischer simply could not be shown pity for fear of the global threat her blood posed for Germany.

Which was fortunate for the young men towering over her, because there could be no doubt that tormenting helpless creatures was also the best fun.

It was not pity that brought the Fischers’ ordeal to an end but pragmatism. Word of the scene taking place outside the famous department store had spread to the offices on the Wilhelmstrasse, where there were those who understood that such incidents would not look well abroad. And for the time being at least the new German Government, anxious for its voice to be heard in the world, still considered that to be an issue.

As Frau Fischer was begging for water, a second Mercedes pulled up.

Roaring to a halt behind the splendid empty vehicle that had delivered the proud Fischer family to their fate.

From this second car stepped a man in a gabardine coat and wearing a homburg hat, the inevitable ‘tough guy’ look favoured by the Prussian Political and Intelligence Police, who were shortly to be renamed the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo. This gangster-like policeman was followed by another, less stern-looking individual in a lounge suit.

‘You!’ the Gestapo man shouted, flashing his police identification at the SA troop leader.

‘ Heil Hitler! ’ the SA man shouted back, springing to attention and delivering his stiff-armed salute all at the same time.

‘This necessary action is over. Get these two to their feet.’

The SA man looked a little put out at having his sport curtailed. The official police and the SS to whom they were now attached were much resented by the rank and file of the SA, who considered themselves to be the true inheritors of the Nazi revolution. But orders were orders and that was something that could never be ignored. The troop leader therefore swallowed his disappointment and shouted at his men to pull the Fischers to their feet.

‘That man with the camera,’ the Gestapo officer snapped, ‘bring him to me.’

A man in the crowd who had been taking photographs saw himself pointed out and turned on his heel. He was clearly hoping to be able to get away but wisely chose to stop when ordered to and waited while two troopers pushed their way through the crowd in order to escort him back.

Meanwhile Herr Fischer had shaken himself free from the SA men and now approached the Gestapo officer. Despite his ordeal, the bruising on his face and the disarray of his clothing, Isaac Fischer still managed to carry himself with some dignity.

‘My name…’ he said, speaking with great difficulty. His lips were bleeding, his tongue dry and swollen, and like his wife he was in desperate need of water. ‘My name,’ he repeated, ‘is Isaac Fischer.’

‘I know who you are,’ the Gestapo officer replied curtly. ‘Why are you addressing me?’

Herr Fischer was forced to cough and clear his throat several times before attempting another sentence. A function which provoked a look of utter offence and contempt from the policeman.

‘Because,’ Herr Fischer began, his voice like sandpaper on stone, ‘because you clearly have some authority and I wish to make a complaint.’

There was something of a gasp amongst the crowd. Some surprised at the man’s bravery, others shocked at his effrontery. This was followed by much angry murmuring as word of the Jew’s whining spread.

‘A complaint?’ the officer enquired coldly. ‘What have you to complain about?’

Fischer’s eyes widened. It was a shock. Even in his dazed and battered state he had not expected quite such brutal indifference to his obvious plight. And to that of his wife, a middle-aged woman publicly assaulted by a large gang of young men.

What had he to complain about? He attempted to gather his thoughts to frame an answer to such a question.

Only eight weeks before, the thugs standing behind him would be facing years in prison for what they had done.

‘I have been prevented,’ he said finally, ‘from entering my store by these men.’

‘One moment.’ The Gestapo man turned to the photographer whom the SA troopers had brought from the crowd.

‘But—’ Fischer found himself protesting.

‘You will address me when I give you permission and not otherwise!’ the Gestapo officer snapped, his rising tone giving warning that despite his pretence at formality he was every bit as unpredictable and as dangerous as Fischer’s previous thug tormentors.

Fischer fell silent.

‘Who are you please?’ the officer asked the man with the camera.

‘I am an American citizen,’ the photographer replied in poor German. ‘I am an American citizen, I work for Reuters and these men have no right to be holding on to me.’

‘The camera please,’ the Gestapo officer demanded, holding out a black gloved hand.

‘Absolutely not! I am an accredited news photog—’

At a nod from the Gestapo, one of the SA troopers snatched the man’s camera, which had been hanging around his neck on a leather strap, and handed it over to the officer.

‘That camera is the property of…’ the American protested, but then did not bother to complete his sentence, there being no point because even as he spoke the Gestapo officer took the film from the camera and exposed every frame of it. He then returned both the camera and the ruined film to their owner.

‘And here is your property returned to you. Everything is in order, is it not?’ the officer said. ‘My colleague from the Ministry of Enlightenment and Propaganda will be happy to answer any further questions you might have regarding the necessary police action you have just witnessed.’