Over beers they talked about scripture and doctrine, about the sacraments and Christian symbology. They all knew the risks, of course, and were circumspect when it came to talking about the political situation, or Hitler, or anything else having to do with the Third Reich. The trouble was that nearly everything these days had something to do with the Third Reich, every thought was measured against Hitler’s thought and was either correct or treasonous. Reinhard was a patient and gifted interlocutor. He found that he could discern from discussions that had nothing to do with politics which of his new friends might harbor errant ideas, who might be a traitor to the Reich. After less than a week at the Humboldt University, he made his first arrest.
The Blood Flag
The Reichsbahn, the national railroad, had laid on special trains, and every one of them was filled to bursting with uniformed men. The atmosphere was festive, despite the heat of the day. Someone would start to sing, Horst Wessel or the Deutschland song or some other marching song, it didn’t matter what, and by the second or third line everyone had joined in. Heinz Schleiffer knew all the words. His shirt was soaked, and sweat was running down his back, down his legs and into his boots. He didn’t mind a bit.
In Nürnberg the train shuddered to a halt with a screech and a great sigh, spewing steam across the platform. The men spilled out of the train, out of the station and into the square. They fell into formation, hoisted their flags and standards, and marched off in the direction of the Zeppelin field. The parade, one group in black, the next in brown, seemed endless. Their flags fluttered overhead. Their marching and singing echoed off the ancient buildings back at them in a grand and joyous cacophony. Just to hear the power of it, to feel the company of those marching beside him, filled Heinz with happiness.
After an hour’s march, the vast field opened up before them. They joined the other thousands streaming onto the grounds or already standing in formation. They found their assigned place not far from the Grandstand with its giant swastika and countless red, white, and black flags. The celebratory noise was deafening. Cries of ‘Heil Hitler’ rang out from every direction. And then everything went quiet.
Suddenly there he was, in front of a small procession coming toward them. One man was carrying the Blood Flag. They had carried that very flag during the Beer Hall Putsch twelve years earlier, where it had supposedly been soaked in the blood of the martyrs. For some reason it made Heinz think of the veil of Veronica, but he drove the thought from his mind. The Führer, standing right in front of him, solemnly touched the flag to the unit’s guidon in the Bluftahnenweihe, the Blood Flag Baptism, consecrating the unit and with it Heinz himself. It was a sacred moment, one Heinz would never forget, no matter how long he lived.
Tens of thousands of men and boys – the Hitler Youth were there too – stood in the sun and waited. Finally Hitler stepped onto the podium, saluted, and everyone raised their arms and shouted, ‘Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!’ It was as though they would never stop. Finally Hitler stepped to the microphone, his eyes cast down, his hands folded in front of him, and the entire mass of men fell silent.
He spoke softly, hesitantly at first, and the crowd strained forward so as not to miss a word. He welcomed this army of followers, and with the greatest humility professed his gratitude for their devotion. He had been called to leadership, he said, a role he had neither wanted nor sought, by the dire situation Germany had faced. He recalled the early years of the movement in which his vision for a reinvigorated Germany had crystalized and taken on the hardness of steel.
He was not a vain or arrogant man, he said, but he had felt called to this sacred task of renewal. It was his divine duty to do battle against a weak, decadent, and corrupted order. This order had been created, and was run, by socialists and democrats following their false gods of socialism and egalitarianism. He had come to destroy them, remove them from their thrones, and to solve the longstanding ‘Jew problem.’
‘Now,’ he said, his voice rising, ‘that which is old, decayed and evil perishes. And let it die! For new life will spring up. We have come together on this day to prove that we are more than a collection of individuals striving one against another, that none of us is too proud, none of us too high, none is too rich, and none too poor, to stand together before the face of the Lord and of the world in this indissoluble, sworn community. When was a leadership at any time faced with a heavier task than our German leadership?
‘Consider, my comrades: how little we Germans have, compared with the wealth of other states, the wealth of other countries, the wealth of other peoples, with the possibilities they possess. Germany is crowded. We have one hundred and thirty-seven people per square kilometer. But we have no colonies, no raw materials, no foreign exchange, no capital. We no longer have any foreign credits. We carry heavy burdens, face only sacrifice, taxation, and low wages.
‘What do we have, then? One thing only: we have our people, our German people. Either it is everything or it is nothing. It is the one thing we can count on. It is the one thing we can build on. Everything that we have created up to the present we owe solely to the people’s goodness of heart, its capacity, its loyalty, its decency, its industry, its sense of order. And when I weigh all this in the balance, it seems to me to be
