Swastika Night

by Katharine Burdekin

  “I haven’t believed it for ages,” said Alfred. “They’re queer, but not so different as all that.”

  “Well, they’re not a race at all. They’re the remnants of a pre-Hitler civilised religion. It was once the religion of all Europe, most of Russia, the Americas, and a part of Africa. Hitler in his youth was a Christian himself. They probably know very little about themselves now. I expect I know a great deal more than they do.”

  “Hitler a Christian!” muttered Hermann, over and over again. “Hitler a Christian!”

  “They say,” said Alfred, “that they are a people expiating a great crime. That they are segregated and spat upon because they once spat upon the race of Jesus Christ their Lord, and persecuted it, and that when their time’s up Jesus is to come again and forgive them personally, and set them up above the Germans.”

  “And do they still know why the Christians originally persecuted the Jews, that’s the race of Jesus? I wish I had had your advantages, Alfred. I have never been able to speak to a Christian.”

  “It’s rather difficult even for me. They say that the Jews killed Jesus, but that he, this extraordinary fellow, said that they were to forgive the Jews because they didn’t know what they were doing at the time. But they disobeyed Jesus, even though he was the Son of God, and gave it the Jews hot for a thousand years. So they have to be spat on for a thousand years, and then Jesus will come again.”

  “They have their times a little wrong. They persecuted and humiliated the Jews for nearly two thousand years, and then the Germans took on the persecution and made it racial, and after a time killed all the Jews off. That was after the Twenty Years’ War. The people who wouldn’t worship Hitler when he became a god were, I suppose, killed, all but a few, and those were segregated.”

  “But why weren’t they killed?”

  “I suppose it was considered better that there should be something for the subject races and the Nazis in Germany to look down on. It was a sensible idea.”

  “And are the Christians dying out too?”

  “No. They’re just about maintaining their numbers. Though their God, Jesus Christ, was born of a woman and not exploded, like Hitler, their women had to share in the Reduction, but they have advantages over ours.”

  “The women have no souls,” Alfred said, “they live with the men, but only as a dog might live with a man. They are not to be included in the Jesus heaven, and they take no part in their religious ceremonies. But they are different from other women. They’re a lot livelier.”

  “That is because they’re in constant contact with the men. And also because they don’t have to give up their boys. The boys and men give them some of their strength and vitality. What exactly do they think will happen when Jesus Christ comes again?”

  “The Sin will be forgiven, the women will disappear, the Christians who are then alive will live for ever, the other dead ones will come out of their graves quite whole and handsome, the Germans and Japanese and all other infidels will be judged and thrown into a lake of fire, and the justified Christians will live for ever in complete and utter happiness with Jesus. There shall be neither male nor female, nor any more sin of any kind. That’s what they tell me. But they may have a lot of secrets they won’t tell to an Englishman!”

  “The religion has become very debased and impure, but that would be inevitable. Women had a very high place in the old Christian theology. Theoretically, their soul-value was equal to the men’s. Practically, of course, it was not. They were not allowed to be priests. But they were told by men that they had souls which Jesus loved, so they developed the simulacrum of a soul and a sham conscience. But when the Reduction of Women started the Christian men acquiesced in it, probably because there always had been in the heart of the religion a hatred of the beauty of women and a horror of the sexual power beautiful women with the right of choice and rejection have over men. And when the women were reduced to the condition of speaking animals, they probably found it impossible to go on believing they had souls.”

  “Supposing they had not acquiesced,” Alfred said, “the Christian women would still be beautiful like that Nazi’s daughter. That would have been all right.”

  The Knight laughed grimly.

  “Then they would all have been killed, however inconvenient. You cannot imagine that that would ever have been allowed.”

  The Knight put his hand again under the desk and this time drew forth a huge book of deep yellow colour. As he opened it the leaves made a peculiar thick crackling sound, unlike the rustling of paper.

  “Come round here a minute, Alfred. Look over my shoulder. Hermann, come too if you like, but you can’t appreciate the beauty of this. You see,” he said to Alfred, “this is written all by hand in the smallest possible German letters, but still as legible as print, every letter being perfectly formed and perfectly spaced. It is written on specially prepared thin parchment sheets. Von Hess says in his introduction that it took him over two years to prepare the book itself. And when he started to write it he had to do it all from memory. Not one book of reference did he have.”

  “But why?

  “Because they were all being burnt. Destroyed.”

  “Ha!” said Alfred, striking one fist into the other palm. “Then there was some history? It wasn’t all darkness and savagery? I knew it! I knew there must be something more than Hitler and Christians and Legends.”

  Alfred went back to his chair lightly, like a triumphant man. Hermann stumbled back to his like a drunkard.

  “There was history,” said the Knight. “Listen to what he says: ‘I, Friedrich von Hess, Teutonic Knight of the Holy German Empire, of the Inner Ten, dedicate this book to my eldest son, Arnold von Hess, to him and to his heirs for ever. Keep it inviolate, guard it as you would your honour, for though what I have put down here is but the smallest fragment of the truth of history, yet I swear that, to my poor knowledge, it is all true.’

  “He thought, you see,” said the Knight, closing the book, “that the time might come when men would again seek passionately for truth, and that this, his little hand-written terribly fragmentary history, might be a faint will-o’-the-wisp light in the darkness. A glow-worm light, he says in one place. He is always in despair—‘Here my memory fails me,’ or ‘Here I have alas no further knowledge.’ He was patient and thorough, a good German worker, but he was no scholar. Simply a man who had read a good many books to amuse himself. And yet, when the final battle for Truth was joined, all the scholars among the Knights fled away, leaving this one of no particular ability alone among devils. Yet there is a Book, a real book, the only one in the world.”

  “No, no,” said Alfred excitedly. “There may be others. It’s only a question of finding the people that keep them. There may be some English ones.”

  “There can’t be, Alfred. The only men free from the threat of instant search are the Knights. Von Hess only managed to write his book secretly because, though disgraced, he was a Knight of the Inner Ten. We have only managed to keep it secret because we are Knights. Some other family of Knights may have a book like this, but I do not think so. I’ll tell you why presently. But now you understand, Alfred, why I have shown you this book and this photograph. Because when I die, as I have no heirs, all my possessions will revert to the State, that is, to the Knights. The book would be found and destroyed. It is proof against time, against a long time, at any rate. Not against fire.”

  “It must never be burned,” Alfred said. A shiver ran through him. “Never.”

  “Well,” said the Knight, “I think I am going to give it to you. Will you protect it as far as you are able?”

  “I’ll die ten deaths,” swore Alfred. “Even painful ones.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “YOU must not think,” the Knight went on, “that this von Hess, my ancestor, was a bad German, or one who had any quarrel with Germany’s destiny to rule over the whole globe. Its destiny to power far greater than the published dreams of the hero Rosenberg was proved to b
e right and the will of God by the accomplished fact. The Germans had proved themselves fitted to conquer and rule by conquering Europe, Russia as far as the Ural Mountains, Africa, Arabia, and Persia, by consolidating their conquests, and by ruling with such realistic and sensible severity that rebellion became as hopeful as a fight between a child of three and an armed man.”

  “Armed rebellion,” Alfred amended.

  “Oh, I know there is a rebellion of the spirit. So did von Hess, so did the other Germans of that date. Von Hess believed, too, that this tremendously powerful German Empire in the centre of the world would be able, in time, to attack and crush the Japanese Empire, which at that time was still growing. And that then the full destiny of Germany would be accomplished. That has not happened. The Japanese rule over Asia, Australia, and the Americas, but they cannot crush us, neither can we crush them. The peace between Japan and Germany is permanent. The Knights know this, the Nazis do not.”

  Hermann groaned and hid his face in his hands. Then he looked up imploringly at the Knight.

  “Not even that left, sir? A chance to die for Germany?”

  “A chance to die for Germany, perhaps. For the German Empire, no. There can’t be any more wars.”

  “But why?” asked Alfred. “I’ve often wondered why you didn’t get on with it.”

  “Neither the Japanese nor ourselves can afford to lose a single man of the ruling race, that’s why. Their population is beginning to decrease, like ours. We cannot send our subject races into battle and stay out of it ourselves. It’s against our honour, against our religion, and besides it’s the fixed policy of both Empires never to allow the subject races to obtain skill with the really dangerous weapons of war. You are taught to be soldiers, riflemen, for the sake of the discipline, but you are not allowed to handle artillery or tanks or aeroplanes. Every German and every Japanese is wanted in the armies of occupation and the ordinary life of the father-land country, and so there can be no more war between us.”

  “Well, that’s simple. And what are you going to do about it, sir?”

  “I don’t know, and neither does anybody else. The hope of war even is wearing very thin. A people which is conditioned for war from childhood, whose ethic is war and whose religion is war, can live, though not very happily, on the hope of war; but when that breaks down it must change its conditioning or perish, like animals which cannot fit themselves to their environment. And neither we nor the Japanese can change the conditioning without abandoning the religion and the ethic. And policing unarmed subject countries with big air fleets is not enough. No one thinks of it as remotely approaching war. We have made ourselves too strong, far too strong, and we’re dying, both the huge Empires side by side, of our own strength.”

  “How would it be,” suggested Alfred, “if you taught us all to use the artillery and tanks and aeroplanes and ships and submarines, and gave us tons and millions of tons of war material and we had a General Rebellion?”

  “It wouldn’t do. You might win. And even if you didn’t, the Japanese might take the opportunity to attack us.”

  “They could do the same thing with their subject races.”

  “We should never trust them to keep their word. Neither would they trust us. But now we have got far away from von Hess. He was not troubled by these considerations. The German population was rapidly growing and he had no terrors about its destiny. The power of Germany was unshakable from without, and the Social Order within was fixed for all time in the Three Ranks—der Fuehrer, the Knights, and the Nazis. But in the midst of all this power and glory and pride there was, so von Hess says, a spiritual uneasiness. The Germans were not yet quite happy. Old ideas, pre-Hitlerian ideas, were still in the world, even though they could reach none by individual expression. The subject races were sullen and secretly contemptuous, still always dreaming, however futilely, of freedom. The shadows of old Empires——”

  “Ha!” cried Alfred, springing up. “There were old Empires, then? You and the Japanese weren’t the only ones? It’s all lies, lies!”

  “The Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Greek, the Roman, the Spanish and the British. In colonial possessions——”

  Alfred interrupted him. “The British! And you tell us all those English-speaking races were just disconnected savage tribes! As if anyone but an idiot could ever believe it. You liars! You fools!”

  The Knight rose to his feet also, and looked at Alfred with controlled but passionate condemnation. “You’re proud of having had an Empire, are you? Proud of being an Englishman for that reason? Look at that poor clod Hermann there—he daren’t face anything, believe anything, he hardly dares to hear anything, he’s a shrinking, shaking coward, not so much because he believes in Hitler, not so much because he’s a German, but because he’s got an Empire! You ought to be ashamed of your race, Alfred, even though your Empire vanished seven hundred years ago. It isn’t long enough to get rid of that taint.”

  “It’s you who have taught us to admire Empire!” Alfred flung at him. “The Holy Ones! The Germans!”

  The Knight sat down again. “No,” he said quietly, “it was you who taught us. Jealousy of the British Empire was one of the motive forces of German imperialism, one of the forces which made Germany grow from a collection of little kingdoms to be ruler of a third of the world. A tremendous bitter black jealousy, so says von Hess, though when he lived the triumph had long come. Unshakable, impregnable Empire has always been the dream of virile nations, and now at last it’s turned into a nightmare reality. A monster that is killing us.”

  “I don’t want ours back,” said Alfred more calmly; “only I always thought it was so, and I like to know the truth.”

  “That is wholly admirable,” said the Knight. “I wish Hermann liked to hear it too.”

  Hermann muttered something inaudible, but the Knight took no notice. “As I was saying, the shadows of these old ideas and of these vast old Empires still hung over Germany, reminding Germans that Empires rise, and fall, reminding them also of their own small beginnings. It was not enough for them to know that they now ruled a third of the world, that in them rested the only true and holy civilisation; they wanted to forget that there ever had been, in Europe, any other civilisation at all. There was so much beauty they had not made, so many books they had not written, so many records of wars in which they had not fought, and so many ideas of human behaviour which were anathema to them. Socialism, for instance, was absolutely smashed, practically, but the idea was still there, in men’s minds. No, Alfred, I will not stop to tell you what Socialism was. You can read it in the book. But if you were a Socialist you would think the Knights had no right to own all the land and factories and ships and houses of the Empire, you would think the people who actually do the work on the land or in the factories ought to own them.”

  “Then I am a Socialist. Were there many of them?”

  “It was really what amounted to the religion of Russia, from the Polish border to Vladivostok, and there were lots of them in every other country. But Russia, after the most tremendous struggle in history (or so says von Hess), was finally beaten, by the combined attacks of Germany and Japan. The home of Socialism was shattered. But do let me get on with the important things. The Germans of that time were blown up with an insensate pride, a lunatic vanity, for which of course there was a great deal of excuse. But they were still afraid. In the heart of the pride lurked a fear, not of anything physical, but of Memory itself. This fear gradually grew into a kind of hysteria (von Hess says the Germans have always been inclined to hysteria), which at last reached its expression in the book of one man. This was a typical scholar-knight called von Wied, a bookish person, says von Hess, a complete nervous hysteric, who, though bloodthirsty, had owing to physical disability to content himself with floods of ink. Von Hess says that had he known what von Wied was doing he would have murdered him without the smallest compunction. This book of von Wied proved that Hitler was God, not born but exploded, that women
were not part of the human race at all but a kind of ape, and that everything that had been said and done and thought before Hitler descended was the blackest error of subhuman savagery and therefore must be wiped out. The fear of Memory reached its height with him, and he gave us the logical and Teutonic remedy, destruction. All history, all psychology, all philosophy, all art except music, all medical knowledge except the purely anatomical and physical—every book and picture and statue that could remind Germans of old time must be destroyed. A huge gulf was to be made which no one could ever cross again. Christianity must go, all the enormous mass of Christian theology must be destroyed throughout the Empire, all the Christian Bibles must be routed out and burned, and even Hitler’s own book, hallowed throughout Germany, could only continue to exist in part. There was Memory there, you see. Memory of what we call the Preliminary Attack.”

  “In which Hitler fought at the age of fourteen, the Glorious Boy,” said Alfred.

  “Yes. But he was much older than that. And Germany was beaten, absolutely defeated. Von Hess doesn’t mind admitting that, but for von Wied that was part of the Memory he was afraid of. You are all taught that Hitler fought in that war at fourteen, and that he had subdued the whole Empire at thirty, after which he was Reunited. But it took much longer than that. Hitler had been dead for nearly a hundred years when the Empire had grown to its present size.”