Ben Elton - Two Brothers

‘I was just wondering what sort of racial mix he is?’ Otto went on, ignoring the headmaster’s order. ‘Some people say he looks Jewish but we wouldn’t have him. I’d say he was about half prick and half arsehole — what do you reckon, sir?’

Otto knew exactly what he was doing.

He truly didn’t care if they killed him. His life was over anyway.

Everything that he loved was lost to him. His home. His family. And his beloved Dagmar.

They were all that mattered in his life and they had been stolen from him. In exchange he had been given a Nazi uniform. An SS uniform in all but name. Had there ever been an irony so cruel? A fate so despicable and low? To be in amongst the Devil’s own? Welcomed as a prodigal son?

Otto would quite happily have taken his own life but he did not want his enemies to be able to say that his Jewish family had turned him into a coward. Therefore he had resolved that he would see if he could force them to do the job for him.

‘A half prick, half arsehole Untermensch , that’s your Führer, sir .’

The principal didn’t rant and rail as Otto had expected him to. He didn’t beat him or shoot him on the spot. Instead, the big friendly-looking face broke into a smile.

‘Well, I must say, lad,’ he boomed good-humouredly, ‘those Jews certainly didn’t manage to knock the spirit out of you, did they? You’ve got balls, my fine young man. Big proud German balls.’

‘Fuck you, sir,’ Otto replied, ‘and fuck Hitler too.’

‘That’s right. Get it all out. Fifteen years a kike is going to have an effect, isn’t it? But I’m going to fix that. You see, young Otto my lad, you are my project . An experiment if you like. I’m going to show that your blood is stronger than any Jewish lie. I’m going to bring you back to the Volk , my son. Renew your membership of the master race , which some careless Commie doctor disregarded at your birth. So then, let’s get to business. We know you’ve got guts all right. Tell me, can you box?’

Otto had resolved not to cooperate with this man but still could not resist the question.

‘If I’m hitting Nazis,’ he replied.

‘Good. We have lots of those here. There’s a senior class going on right now as it happens. Come with me.’

Otto was led back down to the same changing room that he had just left and presented with a sports kit marked with the same triangular swastika badge that was switched to his arm. He could hear the sound of boxing going on in the gymnasium where he had just been examined and, sure enough, on being led back in he saw that a boxing ring had been set up and a group of seventeen-and eighteen-year-old boys were sparring.

‘Lads,’ the head teacher shouted as he entered the room, causing all the youths to spring to rigid attention. ‘This is Otto. He’s a new boy. He just insulted the Führer. Who wants to teach him a lesson?’

The clamour that this announcement caused produced the most likely candidate in short order, a hugely powerful young man who was three years older than Otto and twenty centimetres taller.

‘If this Jungmann has insulted our Leader,’ the powerful-looking boxer boomed, flexing his rock-like biceps, ‘then it will be my honour to punish him.’

Otto shrugged and climbed into the ring.

As he did so the principal stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder, whispering into his ear, ‘Bet you can’t last a single minute with him, little Jew boy.’

Otto wasn’t stupid. He knew he was being goaded. But then he did not need goading. He was ready and happy to fight an opponent who looked quite capable of killing him. All he hoped for was to do some damage first and show those Nazis that a Jewish boy knew how to die. As they tied the gloves to his hands and pushed a gum guard between his teeth, Otto resolved that the only way he was leaving the ring was either unconscious or dead.

The fight was stopped after lasting almost three rounds, by which time Otto was not quite yet unconscious, but then neither was he fully conscious. He was a swollen, bleeding, staggering, gagging, punch-drunk wreck, hitting the canvas over and over again but refusing to stay down and somehow managing to drag himself back on to his feet.

For most of the first round he had even held his own, tucking in under the big man’s reach and getting a couple of heavy hooks into his opponent’s body. But as the older lad got his measure, Otto quickly became nothing more than a tenacious punching bag, as bloody faced as he was bloody minded, careering about the ring, propelled by the massive blows that were raining down on him.

Eventually when one particularly vicious haymaker sent him spinning and tumbling through the ropes and in amongst the spectators, the principal called a halt.

‘You see this wild boy,’ Otto could hear the principal calling out, ‘brought up by Jews! But within him flows the blood and beats the heart of Thor! This fight has been proof! If proof were needed that blood is everything. Take him to the hospital.’

As they dragged him to his feet, Otto attempted to bawl out a cry of defiance, but his mouth was too cut and swollen for him to speak. Both his eyes were also closing fast. He struggled feebly in the grip of the grinning youths who had hold of him, flailing weakly with his gloved fists, before staggering and falling once more. This time when he hit the floor the lights had truly gone out.

FOR THE FIRST four months that Otto was at the school, he was kept closely watched and not allowed any contact or communication with the outside world whatsoever.

‘Your body and your blood belong to the Führer,’ the principal informed him many times, ‘but it is clear that your mind still resides with your Jew abductors. Therefore, Jungmann , we will keep you close, eh?’

Incarcerated in the Spartan confines of a uniquely confident and self-satisfied institution, Otto soon realized that making his protest was not to be as easy as he’d hoped. His plan, such as it was, had been to fight the entire school until they either killed him or threw him out. The problem, he discovered, was that the more he fought, the more spirited and ‘German’ they considered him to be. Every blow he delivered and every beating he took confirmed the school in its belief that rare ‘blood’ flowed in his veins. They held that no Jew could ever show such courage or loyalty and therefore the fact that Otto had maintained these characteristics despite their malicious influence was further proof of Nazi racial theories. The principal saw his happy challenge as simply to redirect Otto’s splendid fighting spirit back in its proper direction. What was more, the harder that task was, the further proof it provided of how wicked and manipulative the perfidious Jew family who had brought Otto up had been. In the principal’s mind, the more Otto fought, the more noble he appeared and the more spitefully cunning his adoptive parents seemed.

Otto had also won for himself the amused respect of his peers, which of course made him angrier still. Right from the first boxing match when he had gone three rounds with the school champion he had been admired as a fighter, which was really the only quality the school thought worthy of respect. Otto’s snarling aggression and willingness to mix it at any time and with anyone was regarded as magnificent, endearing almost. Otto had a pleasant, open sort of face (when it wasn’t bruised and battered beyond recognition) and people had always been drawn to him, liking him on sight. It was the same at the Napola, and very soon the school began to treat him as a sort of pet. A valuable dog that had an impressive mean streak and killer instinct which, when tamed, would make him the best of his breed.