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
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. Fuhrer Goring 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 Fuhrer’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
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.
CHAPTER TEN
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.”
“That is correct, Lieutenant. To take fifteen fresh slates, so to speak, and fill in those blank slates with three months of strict discipline. I guess it becomes hypnotic after a time. Some of the men can’t take it. They crack. Some don’t.”
“It sounds like a form of brainwashing to me,” Lieutenant Collins said. “But why, sir?”
Major Smith glanced at the body laying mere yards away. He said, “The word from my sources at Army high command is that the Army brass thinks its enlisted men have become too soft, too lazy. That the Army has turned into a country club for young men seeking a vacation. I agree. American soldiers must be toughened up — imparted with a sense of loyalty that is sorely missing these days. I would hate to think what would happen if we went to war today. We just might be in trouble. Since I have been in this man’s army I have seen the quality of fighting man decrease a whole hell of a lot.”
“And what better place to turn to for training methods than the most efficient, disciplined fighting units in all of history, the German Death’s Head units?”
“Correct.”
“Sir, do you think that the experiment will be carried on?” Lieutenant Collins asked. He had the sudden urge to smoke, but had forgotten to grab his cigarettes from his dresser as he hurriedly left his townhouse.
“Oh, I am sure that it will,” Major Smith said. “The Army is pretty good at keeping things under wraps.” He started Collins directly in the eye, “You understand your orders, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good,” the Major affirmed. “Now what do you say we go to the Officer’s Club for a nightcap?”
“I would like that, Major.”
“Shall we?”
As the officers strolled away from the Kanter Special Units Building, the lifeless body with the broken neck was loaded into a special Army vehicle, for “proper” treatment at an anonymous burial ground, which the Army had for such purposes.
On the right forearm of the corpse, seven centimeters above the wrist, was not something that had been
