The Secret Journals of Adolf Hitler: Volume 1 - The Anointed

by A G Mogan

  “Adolf, you are scaring me! You … you look transfigured!”

  “You don’t get it, do you? This is my great destiny! That is why I did not drown on that day! That is why the trumpet cried! It was announcing the beginning! The beginning of my work! This, my friend, is my calling! The religious, patriotic, prophetic calling!”

  “But it doesn’t make sense … it’s not like Rome still needs to be saved!” he exclaims foolishly.

  I growl and raise my hands skywards. “Not Rome, you blockhead! But our people, the Germans!”

  “Our people? Saved from what?”

  “From degeneration. From extinction.”

  He gives a scoffing smile.

  “Pfff, sounds like a prophecy of doom. Adolf, what have you been reading again?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Whatever I read made it clear as to what poisons our nation and what must be done to mend it.”

  “Ay, Adolf, your artistic, nationalistic streak always goaded you to imagine far beyond your power.”

  “The power is yours for the taking! One must dream until his last breath! Rienzi was the son of an innkeeper, the power he had was his doing, only his. How are you going to get anything on this earth if you do not believe in your own power, Gustl?”

  “I didn’t know you almost drowned … ”

  I hit my thighs in exasperation. “Come on, Gustl! Do you hear what I am saying?”

  “I do!”

  “Then, quit being stupid!”

  He rubs his forehead as if massaging his brain in exchange for an opinion.

  “Well, Rienzi is defeated in the end,” he says, at last.

  “Indeed … Enough, enough! I have risked, dared, toiled enough for this bastard and degenerate race. I will yet baffle their malice - I renounce the thought of which they are so little worthy! Let Rome Perish! I feel, at last, that I am nobler than my country! She deserves not so high a sacrifice!”

  “There! Maybe your calling isn’t that great!”

  “As long as the Seven Hills of Rome remain, as long as the eternal city resist, you will see the return of Rienzi!”

  “Okay … it’s beautiful … romantic even, but in the end, it’s just a story ─ a true one ─ I give you that, but a story nonetheless, at least for our days.”

  I stare unblinkingly at him.

  “When the time comes, my people will not share your opinion.”

  He bursts into hefty laughter, clutching his stomach and bending slightly forward.

  “Your people?”

  “Come, Gustl, it’s gotten late. I’ll take you home,” I say dejectedly, and shoving my hands in my pockets, I let myself slide down the hill. Disappointed by his cold reaction and offended by his unwillingness to join my enthusiasm, we walk the entire distance to his house in silence. I know he no longer believes in me and now thinks me mad.

  “Can I ask you something?” he asks, once in front of his house.

  “If you must.”

  “Why have you not once asked about Stefanie? You’ve finally forgotten her?”

  “No.”

  “Then … do you plan to see her?”

  “No.”

  “But this ignorance will make things worse. And it will be too late to make her your wife.”

  “So be it,” I say dryly.

  “I don’t understand you! One day you want to jump into the Danube and the next─”

  “Making her my wife is no longer possible, since I am already married.”

  His expression of utter bewilderment amuses me. “What? You got married? And somehow forgot to mention it to me? Was it in Vienna? Certainly in Vienna!”

  “No, Gustl, it was not in Vienna, it was here.”

  “Ah! You speak in code again! Who is she, for crying out loud?”

  “'Well, I did love too, oh Irene! Don’t you remember my love? I loved painfully my exulted bride because I saw her deeply humiliated, outrageously mistreated, horribly disfigured, rejected, dishonored, abused and scorned. My life I devoted only to her. Only to her! My youth and strength as a man, for I wanted to see her, my exulted bride, crowned the queen of the world! Know this: my bride’s name is Rome. My friend,” I say, patting his shoulder, “I swore my vows here, tonight. I swore my vows to the Motherland. She is my true bride. Now, I have a sacred mission, the mission of the Holy Grail, the mission of purifying our blood. Had you truly comprehended Wagner, then you would have understood me, too.”

  Leaving my friend to come to terms with his astonishment, I make my way back to the hill. The drizzle intensifies, but I don’t mind it. When I reach the top of the hill, I hear the huge Cathedral’s clock striking three o’clock in the morning. Yet I cannot return home, my revelation needs to unfold quietly, away from that dreadful reality. I lie stretched on my back and feel the cold, wet soil beneath me. I gaze at the sky again and single out the brightest star in the heavens. That must be mine … I whisper. The Goddess of Fate and Eternal Justice gave rise to it and lit it to guide me through my destiny.

  Rienzi’s words sound clearly in my head again: Chase! Come fairest maiden, have no fear, see now the star of fortune near!

  Looking back now, I realize one last thing.

  In that hour, it all began.

  Deserted Earth And Heaven

  Not even this one time am I allowed to dream with my eyes open for too long, as bloody reality shows its claws again, snatching from me the most beloved person. Mother’s death comes quietly and covertly, just as her disease did months ago, like a predator that lurks in the shadows until the propitious moment arrives to strike.

  In her last week of life, her condition deteriorates noticeably and I seldom leave her side. I move her bed into the kitchen, a room I can easily keep warmed. The nights are the most dreadful. Excruciating pain keeps her awake and throws her into a state of delirium. She talks for hours about Father, or rather with Father, always using the second person and staring ceilingward, as if she sees him somewhere up there, beyond the roof.

  “You look so young, Uncle! I know! I know! Do you also remember the day we got married at seven o’clock in the morning, and how by eight you were already at work?” she asks the ceiling, then bursts into hysterical laughter. “Yes, I regret it, too … not having a honeymoon… You know, Paula has grown so quickly and what a beauty she has become! And Adolf … oh! Adi is a civil servant now just as you always wanted … ” She continues on and on for hours. Even now, Father stands between Mother and I, and I realize I never truly buried him. He will always come back to haunt me with torturous feelings and memories.

  As the light of dawn breaks through the darkness, sparse moments of lucidity return to Mother. At those moments, she asks me to look after Paula and forgive all the wrongs Father has done me.

  “Bury me next to him, my cub.” She buries her face in the pillows to muffle her wailing, then slowly slips into unconsciousness. Shortly after she faints, I realize that those were her last words: bury me next to him, my cub. With my cheek almost touching her face, I feel her increasingly sporadic breath tickling it. At last, a final sigh of relief sets her poor, persecuted soul free.

  It is the morning of December 21st. Another Christmas, and yet another tragedy. But the monumental proportions of this one breaks my soul into pieces. If I’d been able to easily forget the other tragedies, this one so brutally shakes my core that I doubt I will ever be the same again. Every warm feeling that ever crossed my being dies alongside Mother.

  I knew … even though I dismissed the thought as a twisted doing of my imagination, she would not survive Christmas. I knew the holidays would arrive, just as in past years, accompanied by tragedy. I despise Christmas — and will continue to despise it for the rest of my wretched life.

  The howls of my aunt and the other woman disrupt me from the quietness of Mother’s cheek. They’ve come to afford me a chance of rest, but once in the room, the whiff of death and Mother’s lifeless features, confirms the ugly inevitable.

  “Get out!” I shout, jumping t
o my feet. “Get out!”

  “But we must prepare her for─”

  “Not yet!”

  I roughly shove them from the room and lock the door. I cannot endure the grief of others. And I need more time. I am not ready to surrender her to God.

  I’ve often reflected on this moment and wondered if I would have the strength to endure it. I expected to lose my consciousness or to fall into a permanent coma. Yet when the irreversible reality spits in your face, some unknown force, some inner might, breaks through to toughen you, to keep you functional and lucid.

  Beside the sorrow I feel, a sorrow nothing on earth could ease, I am driven by a desire to not disappoint Mother, to fulfill her last wish and become a pillar of strength after her death.

  I stare at her unblinkingly, hoping that her image is imprinted in my mind forever. But I know it isn’t possible, because the ruthless spirit of time will slowly erase the memory of her, the memory of what once was … my mother.

  Grabbing a sheet of drawing paper, I begin to sketch her portrait. This way I would be seeing her again. I should have immortalized her while she was still alive and happy, but I never truly believed I would lose her. Now, her last image will always be overshadowed by death, as if to make me aware how fleeting happiness is, how swiftly all you have could be taken from you, and how unfair life is, even to those who loved and respected it.

  Delineating the lines of her face, I ache at her now transfigured appearance, her once round, ruddy cheeks left as yellow, sunken flesh. I draw the wrinkles that carve across her face, gorging themselves on the ripe flesh, as maggots carve paths through ripe, juicy apples. Her short hair, prematurely gray, her eyes disappearing into her head … and her lips, now ghoulishly open from her last effort to breathe … a final sigh fluttering against my cheek, swallowed then into unbearable silence …

  For the time has come, that bitter time

  When her mouth asks for nothing more …

  The realization of loss rips my soul into a billion pieces, exceeding the count of those flamboyant, otherworldly gems producing wonderful music. The pieces of my soul fly from their center, crying out a tragic melody, never to become a whole again.

  Never.

  I hated Father when he was alive, because he represented all that was rotten in our lives, because he taught me to turn love into hate and affection into bitter resentment. After he died, I hated him even more, because he took with him my only chance to avenge Mother. In the face of my vengeance, death stood as too kind a punishment. Now Mother is dead and I hate his memory more than ever, because from his grave, he reached out his demonic claws to snatch the only person I ever loved. He was the one that killed her. Slowly and steadily. How could I ever forgive him? How could I ever avenge myself on him? This last question will torment me in waking and in sleep, for the rest of my life. Since Mother took her last breath, only the desire for revenge overcomes my grief. Only this desire prevents me from slipping into a permanent coma.

  I fold the drawing, place it in my shirt pocket, and then release Mother to my aunt, who will prepare her for the last rites. I must begin the official proceedings for her transportation to Leonding and burial. The entire city is engulfed in a holiday mood, so I need to either make use of my scarce connections or to beg. Finally, I manage to get the priest to schedule the religious service for the day after tomorrow.

  I can hardly sleep during the two-day vigil, and if at Father’s I couldn’t sleep out of fear, now I don’t want to waste any moment left with Mother, even under such cruel circumstances.

  A body recently deserted by the life animating it looks grotesque and stands as a bitter humiliation to the person who inhabited it. Resembling a worn-out puppet left to the merciless passing of time, strings snapped, puppeteer missing. That’s the look of a corpse. That’s the look of Mother, or what’s left of her. Now sunken into her own body, it’s as if she’s hollow inside. It seems unbelievable that blood had once washed through her jaundiced skin. It frightens me to look at her fingers and lips, now a bluish shade, the color of death. Her eyes, along with the rest of her face, sink deep into her skull.

  “Gustl is here.” My aunt’s voice stabs me painfully in the ears. “Go greet him.”

  It’s ten minutes past six o’clock on the morning of the funeral. My friend came, accompanied by his mother, to pay their respects to the deceased. Their sad eyes and hands full of flowers make me burst into tears. I wish I had brought flowers to Mother more often. I wish Gustl would have come without his mother, as the mere sight of her makes me once again experience the weight of my loss.

  Dr. Bloch follows, looking visibly affected by the passing of the one he always spoke of as ‘the most gentle of women’.

  “I thank you for everything you did for my mother. I shall remain forever grateful,” I whisper and shake his hand.

  I truly feel grateful for his care and concern over the last months, but can’t help thinking maybe some of the blame for her death, however small, falls on him. Was it really too late for her? Is it possible that an error slipped into her diagnosis or treatment? Could the prescribed iodoform been what actually killed her, slowly poisoning her blood? Should the fact that he is a Jew mean anything?

  No, no. I could never be certain. But who am I to blame? Who? Who?

  My aunt calls me again, this time to help the men gathered in the house transfer Mother’s limp body into the coffin. It is so stiff, so cold.

  We leave the house and take the arduous road leading to the church. The red sky glows with a somber, unnatural light, like something you associate with animals howling and the uneasy feeling of something bad waiting to happen. The glazed frost covering the cobblestone makes our progress difficult, but it is nothing compared to the icy-cold, tomb-like church. It reminds me of the terrible nightmare I had, when I saw everyone dead in the church of Leonding.

  Now, listening to the priest’s speech, I gaze at the people around me, wearing their black mourning clothes, all alive. Only Mother is dead.

  With the religious service over, the small funeral procession takes the long road to Leonding, which will take several hours to complete. I follow behind the coffin, holding little Paula with one hand, and squeezing the black hat I take off my head in the other. Advancing on Landstrasse, we reach the bridge over the Danube River. How many beautiful and equally sad memories will forever bind me to this cursed bridge!

  My feet are wet and cold, and tiny water droplets stick to my black coat, hat, and gloves. Leaving the bridge behind, we pass by one of the still-open bakeries in town. A sweet smell reaches us from the inside…the smell of cinnamon plum cakes. I squat, bury my head in my hands, and begin to sob. Paula rushes to embrace me, but nothing helps. That smell … that sweet smell of the one that was and never will be again. My friend hunkers down, and gently squeezing my shoulder, he whispers in my ear.

  “Adolf, look!”

  His arm is pointing at something and the excitement in his voice averts my attention from the sweet smell. I get up to look in the direction Gustl points out.

  On the right side above the bakery, framed by a huge, wide-opened window, the angelic figure of a beautiful girl stands out.

  “Stefanie!” I whisper, only for my ears to hear.

  She looks at our procession and I wonder if she recognizes me. Her disheveled hair, her milky-white nightgown, and her sleepy face make her more beautiful than I remember.

  For a few moments, her image eases my crippled spirit and almost makes me forget my wretchedness. I raise my hat to greet her and resume my slow walk behind the procession. This is the only ray of sunshine on this dismal, gloomy day, and somehow, the light of it sticks with me, brightening the long road ahead.

  In Leonding, the first shovel of dirt thrown onto Mother’s coffin drops me to my knees. Howling, I curse my life, curse Christmas, and curse God.

  I will not dwell on this event much longer or I might collapse and never be able to get up again.

  On Christmas Eve, my si
ster invites me to her house for dinner, but I cannot bring myself to go and send little Paula instead. I pay a short visit to Gustl, yet the warm courtesy of his parents and the smell of festive foods are too much for me. I can’t bring myself to go home either, as the silence there brings me too close to madness. I wander into the darkness and for hours shuffle through the streets of Linz, pondering the hostile world around me.

  I pay no attention to where I am until I reach the Danube Bridge. I stare down over the railing at the rushing water. I could jump in, right now, let the water fill my lungs and take me to Mother. But, I’m afraid. I am so afraid.

  Leaving the bridge behind, I drag myself to the only place that could bring me relief, and once arrived, I sit on a curbstone. I stuff my face into my coat and rub my hands to warm them up.

  Suddenly, big white snowflakes plunge toward the ground. I look through them at my beloved’s window. I hear music, a soothing aria I don’t recognize. I let it caress my soul, desperately clinging to each note. Tears stream from my eyes and freeze on my cheeks. I press my palms together and begin to pray. I pray to God to end my misery. I pray to the snow to cover me up with its magical white curtain and freeze me to death. I pray to the enormous window to reveal my beautiful lover.

  In that instant I see her. She is dancing, her golden hair falling down to her waist in bright honey-colored curls. I stare, hypnotized by the way she undulates her body, and I think maybe dancing is not such a dreadful thing, after all. I could stay here watching her for an eternity. However, my eternity lasts only this one moment, only until the tall, muscular officer nears my beloved and grabs her ‘round the waist with strong arms. He begins twirling her through different steps, moving in tune with the music. They stare, smiling, into each other’s eyes. She … red in the cheeks, he … sure of himself, pulling her even closer. He toys with her golden curls then slowly, they unite in an endless kiss.

  Deserted by Mother, betrayed by Stefanie, and forsaken by God, for the first time in my life, I feel utterly alone.