I've been slaving away at a furious pace to keep up with the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) pace. I'm almost 9k words and we're on day 5. This would be fun if I didn't do Historical Fiction. I don't know what I was thinking, lol. For every sentence I write, I have to look at 2-3 websites and compare timelines. It's a lot more work than I thought, but I've been feeling a sense of accomplishment with every day I meet my word count quota. Now I see why people call this the "marathon" of writing.
I don't know if I'll ever publish this novel, so I'm going to paste the first few chapters here. I figure, even if I do publish it, it's okay to give teasers, so here is what I have so far. It's long, very rough, and probably riddled with mistakes, but if you like history I hope you'll like this.
Chapter 1
In 1918, World War I ended. Japan’s unexpected victory over czarist
Russia left open the door for Japanese expansion in Asia and the Pacific. There was instability worldwide because of
the Great Depression. Some nations,
including, Germany, Italy, and Japan developed intense nationalist feelings,
leading to a desire to expand. Germany
was displeased with the harsh terms forced on it at the conclusion of the First
World War. Competing ideologies fanned
the flames of international tension. A Russian
Civil War established the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a
communist state. Western Republics and
Capitalists feared the spread of communism.
In many nations, such as Italy, Germany, and Romania, conservative
groups rose to power as a reaction against communism. The world was still in chaos, nation fighting
nation, ideals and counter-ideals, until the beginning of World War II.
1931 – Japan seized Manchuria from
China.
1935 – Italy invaded and defeated
Abyssinia in 1935.
1935 – Adolf Hitler re-militarized
Germany’s Rhineland.
1936-1939 – The Spanish Civil War.
1938 – Germany occupied
Czechoslovakia.
The two most significant events which
plunged the world into war again were first, the “Marco Polo Bridge Incident”
led to a prolonged war between Japan and China and second, September 1, 1939,
when Germany invaded Poland, which led Britain and France to declare war on
Hitler’s Nazi state. The allied forces
thought they were fighting nations. They
thought they could defeat a government or army, and the war would be over. In reality, they were fighting an ideal, and
ideals are not as easy to defeat as armies or regimes. The ideal they fought went all the way back
to the end of the First World War.
In the late 1920’s and the
beginning of the 1930’s, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party exploited the discontent
Germans. At the end of the First World
War, Germans were forced to sign the treaty ending the war in the same location
they’d forced the French to sign the treaty ending the Franco Prussian war. The terms offered to Germany were humiliating
and debilitating; arms controls, war reparations amounting to billions of
marks, and substantial territory concessions.
These problems, with the added weight of the Great Depression, left the
German economy in tatters. The
influential powers left in the German government were powerless against such
odds. Hitler began telling the people
that it shouldn’t be like this. The idea
behind the First World War was that Germany was worthy, Germany was great, and
it deserved to grow. Hitler used those
ideals against the weakened government saying the German people were great, the
German people were worthy, and the German race was supreme. He blamed the corrupted government for the
downfall of Germany. He said the German
government had been infiltrated by foreigners, the Jews, and laid the blame of
a crippled Germany at their feet. He made
a defining line between those he considers true Germans, namely the “Aryan
Race”, and the Jews, gypsies, and others he deemed undesirable. With this mentality, the German people could
shed the disgraceful acts and failures of the First World War.
People flocked to this ideal. Being Aryan meant that everything that had
gone wrong with Germany wasn’t their fault.
It meant that there was someone else to blame for their suffering. There was suddenly someone to fight,
something to do to make things better.
It took away the sense of helplessness, and replaced it with
purpose. Being Aryan meant they weren’t
part of Germany’s disgrace. It meant
that they were part of a German ascent, a Germany reborn, a Germany
triumphant. It was the hope the people
needed to crawl out of their debilitated state.
The Nazi party was founded in
January of 1919 as the pan-German nationalist and anti-Semitic German Workers’
Party. By 1920, Hitler was its leader. On the 24th of February 1920,
Hitler publicly proclaimed the 25-point Program. The program championed the right to
employment, and called for the institution of profit sharing, confiscation of
war profits, prosecution of usurers and profiteers, nationalization of trusts,
communalization of department stores, extension of old-age pension system,
creation of a national education program of all classes, prohibition of child
labor, and an end to the dominance of investment capital. The ideals were all about giving power to the
people, and blaming the Jews for corruption of the government.
In 1923, Hitler, at the head of the
Nazi Party, tried to seize power in Munich.
This gave Hitler his first national publicity. He was arrested for treason and sentenced to
five years in prison. After only nine
months, Hitler was released. This
failure to seize power caused Hitler to change the Nazi party’s tactics. He wrote, Mein
Kampf (My Struggle) while imprisoned, which outlined his political ideology
and future plans for Germany. He also
explains how he adopted an anti-Semitic and anti-Communistic ideology; the two
things he believed to be the world’s two greatest evils.
In 1927, Hitler gave a speech at
the Nuremberg Rally. This famous speech
is where Hitler proclaimed that the nation needed space, and the government was
not addressing this issue. He affirmed
that industrialization was the future of European nations. He proclaims that to achieve this goal, the
nation needed power, and this power had three factors; first – numerical size,
second – territory, and third – the inner strength of the people. He stated that the first two factors, at that
point in time, were laughable. The nation
had to depend on the strength of the people.
He stated that this strength was compromised due to a matter of blood,
and he elaborates on the importance of pure Aryan blood. He went on to state that the government wants
to control population, and that there is no room for non-Aryan people, and that
Germany must expand. He ends by rallying
the people behind a flag; a flag with the Swastika. The swastika had been adopted by the Nazi
Party early on, believing it to be an Aryan symbol, and because it was a unique
symbol that would separate them from all other nations.
In 1929, the Nazi Party received
recognition and credibility it had never seen before. A referendum was held in Germany to introduce
a law against the enslavement of German people.
The law, proposed by German Nationalists, would officially renounce the
Treaty of Versailles, and free the German people from the crushing debt of
billions of marks worth of reparations from the First World War. The government negotiated the Young Plan with
foreign nations, instead. Under the
Young Plan, there was a loosening of the heavy economic burden of the original
Treaty of Versailles. The Nazi Party
vehemently rejected the Young Plan because they believed it was accepting the
Treaty of Versailles. Heated arguments,
which lead to gunfire exchange between the two parties, ensued. Coverage of the issue made Adolf Hitler a
household name. It gave him the
credibility he lacked before. The
youthful enthusiasm of the Nazis appealed to voters. In the end, the Young Plan was ratified,
causing some distress among the people.
In 1930, an argument between Horst
Wessel (a Nazi activist) and his landlady (A member of the communist party),
lead to Horst Wessel being shot by another member of the communist party. Before his death, Wessel wrote Horst-Wessel-Lied which would later become
the Nazi anthem. The song was publicized
while Wessel lay on his deathbed, and the attack was used as an anti-communist
propaganda for the Nazis. The Nazi’s
party grew and became the second largest party in Germany.
Following this boost in popularity,
an unprecedented amount of money was thrown behind the Nazi campaign. Millions of pamphlets were distributed. Special attention was paid to Berlin where
the support was the lowest. The Great Depression
hit, putting the people in a bigger bind than under the weight of the newly
ratified Young Plan, and the first aggression from the Nazi SA (Schutzstaffel –
the Fuhrer’s Praetorian Guard) against the Jews took place when they smashed
the windows of Jewish-owned stores. Both
the Nazis and Communists pledged to eliminate democracy, and the Communists
vowed that they’d rather have the Nazis in charge than the old republic. The Chancellors were forced to rely on the
president’s emergency power to govern.
From 1931-1933, the Nazis combined
terror attacks with regular campaigning.
Hitler flew to all corners of the nation, while the SA marched in the
streets, beat up opponents, and interrupted their meetings and rallies. The Social Democrats were all but destroyed,
and the Communists were the only party strong enough to stand up to the
Nazis. There were fights in the streets
between the two parties. However, Moscow
directed the Communists party to focus its efforts to destroying the Social
Democrats because it felt that they were a bigger threat than the working
class. In the 1932 elections, the Nazi
party became the largest party. Hitler
demanded the chancellorship. Papen and
Schleicher (the two contenders for the seat of president) fought each other by
trying to make deals with Hitler.
Behind the backdrop of political
struggles, the KPD and Nazis’ violent encounters increased. Jews suffered casualties, and the government
banned the SS and SA. This ban was repealed
by Papen because anti-Semitism was supported by the German public at the
time. The KPD continued to suffer losses
politically, so they turned more to violence.
The two sides clashed until the Nazis storm leader was
assassinated. The Nazis gained almost 14
million votes in the aftermath, and Hitler demanded to be made chancellor
again. Papen offered him the position of
Vice-Chancellor, but Hitler refused.
On January 30, 1933, Hitler was
appointed Chancellor. When Papen left
office, he promised Hitler the Chancellorship if he, Papen, would be appointed
Vice-Chancellor. The new president,
Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor, and Papen was appointed
Vice-Chancellor, still believing he could tame Hitler. Papen only spoke out one time against the
Nazi regime, and it almost cost him his life.
He never public denounced the organization again.
Hitler was now the Chancellor of
the coalition government. The SS and SA
led torchlight parades throughout Berlin.
In this new coalition, three members of the cabinet were Nazis. Hitler then moved to consolidate power. They began to suspend civil liberties, and
eliminate political opposition. However,
Hitler still lacked the votes to secure a majority. He needed the help of the Centre Party and
Conservatives in the Reichstag. He convinced
them (surrounding the parliament with soldiers and telling them that it was
their decision to choose between war and peace)to pass the Enabling Act in
March of 1933, which gave him power “temporarily” to act without parliamentary
consent, and even without constitutional limitations. By July of the same year all Non-Nazi parties
were outlawed. When Hindenburg died in
1934, Hitler gained full dictatorship.
This charismatic leader was the man
the people looked up to. His ideals
became their ideals. A broken,
humiliated, and deeply suffering people found a leader who spoke about their
bright future. These people found a
leader who was always fighting for them against an enemy within the ranks of
their own government. They were promised
that which they desperately needed: A voice.
The Nazis were able to restore
economic instability, and end mass unemployment by using heavy military
spending and a mixed economy. The return
to economic stability greatly boosted the regime’s popularity.
Racism, especially Anti-Semitism,
was a central focus of the regime. The
Germanic people, mainly a Nordic race, were labeled as genetically
superior. Jews, and anyone else the
regime deemed as undesirable, were persecuted or murdered. Any opposition to Hitler’s rule was
ruthlessly suppressed. Even church
leaders were imprisoned. Education was
focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. The youth, and general populace, were
inundated by film, rallies, and radio propaganda to control public
opinion. It was time for the Aryan race
to “get what they deserved”.
In September of 1939 Hitler invaded
Poland. Hitler was fulfilling a second
promise to his people to expand their territory. In alliances with Italy and other axis
powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940. His people heard only the
propaganda the regime repeated, and legions of youth joined the cause to expand
German control. Many held the ideals so
closely to heart that it became almost religious to uphold the Nazi
dictates. It was their birthright, their
proper place because they were a superior race.
In 1940, Germany threatened
England. In 1941, it invaded
Russia. The tide turned against the
expanding Germany in 1943. In 1944,
large-scale bombing of German cities were executed by the allied forces. By 1945, Germany was overrun by Russia on the
east, and the allied forces on the west.
Faced with the defeat of his people and ideals, Hitler suffered a
nervous breakdown on the 22nd of April. He launched a tirade against the treachery
and incompetence of his commanders, and then admitted that they had lost. Hitler vowed to stay in Berlin until the end,
to die as a martyr to his cause. Later
that day, he asked an SS doctor the most reliable method of suicide.
On the 30th of April,
1945, Hitler was informed that the troops protecting his bunker had run out of
ammunition the night before, and allied forces would over-run them within 24
hours. At 14:30, Adolf and Eva Hitler
retired to their study. At around 15:30,
a gunshot was heard from the same study.
After waiting several minutes Hitler’s valet entered the room to find
the Fuhrer had shot himself in the head, through the mouth, and his wife, Ava,
had taken a cyanide pill.
On May 1, 1945, a radio
announcement from Germany interrupted normal programming to announce that the
Fuhrer was dead.
Thousands of Germans took their own
lives in mass suicides following the Fuhrer’s death. The Germans were not to surrender. The superior race of man was not to be
defeated.
Chapter 2
May 1, 1945 – Fredda trembled in
the dark corner of the bomb shelter as the earth shook all around her. She desperately tried to hush her crying
baby. Dirt and sand rained down from the
ceiling as the bombs bombarded the city outside. Berlin was falling to ruin. The Nazis had failed in their attempt to
restore the world to the proper order.
Her precious baby wailed in terror.
“Shush, my darling. Shh, my little Karl,” she pleaded.
The baby cried, just the same. Fredda could almost imagine the allied forces
hearing her young son’s cries. She could
almost see them investigating the rubble, and finding her bunker. She couldn’t let that happen. She had to protect her son. She couldn’t lose the Fuhrer’s son. He had radioed before they cut
communications. His line was to live on
through Karl. The Aryan cause had lost
the battle, but the Nazis would rise again.
All would be set right.
Fredda cried at the thought of
losing the Fuhrer. Her radio had been
dead for days, and she didn’t know if he’d been able to escape the invasion or
not. He was a stubborn man. He refused to leave Berlin. Perhaps the SS could save him. Perhaps he could negotiate a peace treaty to
appease the allied forces, and buy time for Germany to rebuild her strength. Even if he died…
Fredda had tears streaming down her
face again.
Karl must live.
“Shush, my precious child. Shhh,” she said, bouncing the baby to abate
his rising fears.
Just then, a bright light flashed
at the far side of the bunker. The
ground shook vehemently. All Fredda
could hear was ringing. Rubble rained
down from the ceiling. Chunks of
concrete and dirt pelted her from the front.
Fredda couldn’t understand what had happened. She was sitting. She hadn’t been sitting before, she was sure
of it. She tried to stand only to find
that the world was tilting at odd angles.
She felt something warm running down her neck from her right ear. Upon investigating it with her hand she saw
that it was blood. The world started
dimming in her vision. Karl wasn’t
crying anymore. She clutched her child
to her bosom just as the light blinked out of existence.
---------------------------
May 20, 1945 – Water sloshed
against the side of the small ship as Fredda looked out at the endless expanse
of water. Her flight out of Germany was
not without incident. The allied forces
had dropped a bomb right on her bunker.
Luckily, she and her baby were spared in that horrible moment. She had lost the hearing in her right ear,
and the SS soldiers who rescued her could not tell her if it would ever come
back. They smuggled her across the
border into France. It was the scariest
four days of her life.
The SS soldiers were trained to
speak French perfectly. Fredda found it
difficult to believe that they were German, at all. They had ties with the French
underground. The very people who were
supposed to be working towards the upheaval of German rule were infiltrated by
Nazi spies. Fredda was in awe at the
power and influence of the Nazi Party.
Fredda was technically an American
citizen. She was born in Wichita,
Kansas. Her father had immigrated to
America before the First World War. He
went to Kansas to help with the railroads.
Facing internment in 1917 because of his political affiliations,
Fredda’s father decided to flee to Brazil (one of the few countries which would
take him) to escape the internment camps.
He returned to Kansas in 1923, to work in an aircraft manufacturing
company. Fredda was born in 1925. She was born an American.
Her father would secretly teach her
about the notion of Nationalism. Those teachings
from her early childhood always fascinated her.
When she turned sixteen, she moved to Germany. Germany had been in ruin just years before
because of a debt for war crimes during the Great War. Now, they were at war to win back their
freedom from the slavery of that debt. Fredda
had to sneak into the country because of the fighting. Once inside Germany, she learned of a heroic
leader who was fighting for the people, Adolf Hitler. This was the Nationalism her father had
taught her about. This man, Hitler, was
a true patriot for his people. Young
Nazi soldiers marched in the street, carrying their flag with pride. Fredda had never felt so exuberant in her
young life. She had to meet Adolf.
Adolf Hitler was pressing an attack
on both sides. He was threatening
Britain, while pushing an invasion of Russia.
The man never rested. Fredda took
a job in his office as a telegrapher. Eventually,
he took notice of her, and he arranged a meeting with her. Adolf questioned her at length about her
politics, ethnicity, and especially about her father. He was saddened that she was an American, but
seemed to be taken with her, just the same.
She was invited to special meetings where she would transcribe orders. She instantly loved everything about the
man. She loved his passion. She loved the way he fought for the working
people. She was devoted to him. After a week or two of working personally
with him, he, too, fell in love with her.
He could not be seen with her publicly because of her Capitalist
heritage, but they became fast lovers, and met in private frequently throughout
his military campaign.
It was Fredda’s American heritage
which kept her from openly courting the love of her life all those years, but
it was that same heritage which saved her in France. Because she had an American citizenship, she
was able to get passageway out of France.
The journey was not one she wanted to relive. France was just starting to rebuild. The people were unstable, and many were
homeless or living in shelters. They had
been dislodged from their homes, and forced to live in rubble. Fredda wondered if her own people would be
reduced to such circumstances with the destruction of Berlin and the German
army. She knew her people were
strong. She knew Germans were the chosen
race, but she worried for them during this struggle to regroup and regain
control of power. The world fell apart
when the Fuhrer died.
From France the secret SS officers
arranged a boat trip to England and from England to the U.S. At least Fredda would be among people she
knew. It had been years since she’d seen
her father, and she had so much to tell him.
“When we get to America,” one of
the SS officers said, “You shall be my wife.”
Fredda was appalled by the
idea. “I’ll do no such…”
“Just on paper,” the man
interrupted. “Karl will be Karl Adolf
Schuhmacher, that’s my last name.” When
he saw the discontented look on her face he said, “It was the Fuhrer’s wish. He cannot be called Hitler. He must be Schuhmacher to the public. We will teach him, and guide him. He will always have help from the National
Socialists.”
Fredda nodded her head, and gave a
small smile. She didn’t like the idea of
being someone else’s wife. Especially a
man whom she’d barely met, but if it was the Fuhrer’s wish, she would
comply. When she looked back at the SS
officer, he smiled at her.
“Do not worry, Frau Hitler. When we get to America, we will be
divorced. The paperwork has already been
done. Karl was born in Wichita,
Kansas. You are my wife, so he shall be
Karl Adolf Schuhmacher, but when we return, you will become discontent with our
marriage, and we will be divorced.” He
smiled at her again. “We have many
friends waiting for us in America. We
will build a new Aryan Nation, and we will take down the Capitalists from the
inside.”
Fredda felt herself smiling,
sincerely this time. “Thank you, Herr
Schuhmacher. You have saved me and my
baby.”
The SS officer’s smile melted
away. “We have saved the Fuhrer’s
baby. We will groom him as the Fuhrer
would have groomed him. You will not get
in the way.”
Fredda felt a shock run through her
body. She realized the words had pushed
her back, leaning away from the man, as she sat there in shock. She knew the officer was deadly serious. She no longer had say as to how the child
would be raise. It didn’t matter,
though. She wanted him to learn the
Nationalists dictates. She knew that the
Americans would push their Capitalism on the boy. He would need guidance from the great leaders
of the Nazi party.
Fredda willed herself to sit back
upright, and smile. “I will not get in
the way, Herr Schuhmacher. I want Karl
to grow to be a strong leader like his father.”
The SS officer seemed pleased, and
turned his attention back to the open sea.
--------------------
Good to his word, the SS officer
got Fredda and Karl back to Wichita, and, shortly thereafter, divorced
her. Karl had a fake birth certificate
proving he was an American. Fredda told
her father all about her years in Germany, Karl’s heritage, and the Nazis’ plan
for him. Fredda’s father seemed
pleased, and took to the boy immediately.
As Karl grew, he became very close to his grandparents. Fredda went to College, and got her degree in
Anthropology.
In 1949, Fredda married a Brazilian
man from Rio Grande do Sul, named Carlos Guindaste. He was
of German descent, so Fredda felt confident that the marriage was
acceptable. Carlos had to move back to
Brazil shortly after their marriage, while Fredda continued her education.
In 1951, Fredda moved with her
six-year-old son Karl to Brazil to reunite with his estranged step-father. They lived in a subsidiary city of Sao Paulo
called Guarulhos. At first, Fredda
worked in a low paying job as a topographical surveyor for the Brazilian
government. She wanted to address the
problem of poverty in the rural areas outlining the city, so she created a
microcredit system working with the U.S. government.
The United States had developed a
foreign aid policy in 1915, under the direction of Herbert Hoover, to prevent
starvation in Belgium. After 1945, many
countries needed relief from the chronic deprivation of their low income
populations. Fredda capitalized on the
U.S.’s generosity to provide aid to her German friends who had immigrated to
the southern parts of Brazil.
In 1954, Fredda had a daughter with
Carlos. She lived happily with her family for another year before the SS
officers showed up.
In 1955, four SS officers showed up
at Fredda’s house in Guarulhos, Brazil.
Fredda invited them in, and offered them some juice, but the men didn’t
seem interested in any pleasantries, at all.
“The boy is ten years old, now,”
the tallest man stated. “He has not been
receiving the proper education in this country you have chosen to hide in.”
Fredda felt her cheeks flush. “We’re not hiding. I’m helping the German immigrants who fled to
Brazil after the war. Karl gets to see
my work. He sees me working for the
people. He is learning what it means to
be a Social Nationalist”
The officer spit on the floor. “These Germans don’t remember their Aryan
birthright. They mix with these lesser
races. The German blood has been sullied
here by who knows how many other races.
Your own husband is only half German.”
“But I…”
“Enough,” the officer interrupted
Fredda before she could voice her argument.
“We have enrolled Karl into an academy in Virginia. There is a man, George Lincoln Rockwell, who
has already begun to move against the American Capitalist government. The Social Nationalist Party has backed an
academy in Arlington, Virginia, which will give Karl the education he will need
to become the next world leader.”
The officers all stood. “Heil, Hitler,” they shouted,
enthusiastically, as they held their hands out in salute.
“Heil, Hitler,” Fredda repeated
with less zeal than the four men. The SS
officers turned and left the room. It
was decided. She had no say. Karl would return to America to start fifth
grade in an academy which would give him a proper Socialist education.
Chapter 3
Karl attended the academy, but his
regular studies were only secondary to his real education. He remembered struggling in school. The subjects that seemed to come natural to
the other students didn’t seem to click with him. He had special tutors after school,
though. Anything he couldn’t understand
from class was quickly explained to him in a way which made it seem simple, and
then his real lessons began.
There were three tutors who took
turns helping him after school; Klaus, Rupert, and Angelika.
Karl hated Klaus. The man was monstrously big. He had blond hair, which he always kept cut
close except on the top where it was flat.
He looked like his head was boxed shaped because his jaw was square,
too. He had a big scar across his right
temple which went dangerously close to his eye.
When Karl asked him about it he said it was because his tutor beat him
with a steel rod for not doing his studies.
Karl didn’t know if he was serious, or not, but he never dared ask about
it again. Aside from his physically
intimidating attributes, Klaus was brutally strict. Karl was afraid to tell him when he had
trouble with school problems because Klaus would always tell him that he was
better than that, that he should know these things simply because of his birth
superiority. Not telling him was worse,
though. Klaus would not accept
failure. If Karl got anything but 100% on
an assignment, or especially a test, Klaus would whip him on the rear-end with
a switch. Klaus taught Karl horrible
things about tactics, and the best ways to kill a man. He taught about who to kill, and why. When he taught about the racial superiority
of the Aryan bloodline, though, the man seemed to get all foggy-eyed and
sentimental.
Rupert was okay. He wasn’t cruel like Klaus, but he also
wasn’t nice. Rupert always looked at his
watch when they were studying. He never
left more than a minute late from their session. Rupert was very intelligent. He had dark hair, and always wore half-inch
thick glasses with horned rims. He
taught Karl all about racial biology.
Even though Karl was not allowed to share what he learned with his other
students, he always felt frustrated when his teachers from school got things
wrong. Rupert taught him how to answer
the questions from class, and then he would teach him the truth. Rupert was an expert on everything. He talked about the origin of man. He taught how the different races came from
different sources. He taught about
science in a way that made Karl feel important.
Karl’s favorite, by far, was
Angelicka, or as she liked to be called, Angel.
Angel was tall. She was almost as
tall as Klaus. Karl had never seen a
woman as tall as Angel before. She had
long blonde hair, but she always wore it up in a tight bun. Karl had only seen it out of the bun once
when she had ridden her bike to his house, and she had to undo it and put it up
again. He had a childhood crush on her,
but would never act on his feelings.
Angel taught Karl about politics.
She taught him how to speak to audiences, and how to get people excited
about what you said. She would have him
practice debating. She’d make him
research a topic, and give a heated speech about it. No matter how many times he spoke, she always
had ideas to make his speeches better.
She always told him that charisma was the key to winning. She said that he could even be wrong about
something, but if he said it with enough conviction, and could state relatively
reasonable evidence, that most people would believe him. She taught him that most of the people around
him were sheep looking for a shepherd to show them the way. She would always end their lessons by telling
him to be a good shepherd.
Between his three tutors, Karl
never got a bad grade in school.
A year after Karl started at his
private academy, his mother and sister moved back to the States. Karl was happy to see them, but his studies
kept him busy most of the time. His
mother went back to school, too. She
spent two years getting her Master’s Degree, and then moved back to
Brazil. Karl’s grandparents had moved to
Virginia, so he stayed with them. He
didn’t want to leave his school, and he wasn’t sure that Albrecht (the man who
seemed to be in charge of his tutors, and who his mother always seemed to fear)
would let him move, even if he wanted to.
Albrecht always had one of three men with him, and sometimes all
three. His mother had told him that they
were SS officers, and that he should always do what they said. His tutors had ingrained in him how important
it was to never speak about the SS officers, or the Nazis in public. They told him never to even say the words
“National Socialist” out loud. Of
course, Karl had heard people talk about the Nazis, and it was usually all bad
things. His tutors assured him that it
was because of their Capitalistic pride that they hated the Nazi Party. Karl believed them.
In July 1958, a man named George
Lincoln Rockwell demonstrated in front of the White House in an anti-war
protest against the president Dwight D. Eisenhower. President Eisenhower wanted to send peace
keeping troops to the Middle East. The
protest caught Albrecht’s attention and he sent an 18-foot-long swastika flag
to Rockwell. Rockwell placed the flag on
the wall of his home with a picture of the Fuhrer in the center, and marched
around his home with some fellow supporters, armed with rifles and
pistols. Karl was taught by his tutors
that Rockwell had an impressive war record.
They explained that a man with such a wide knowledge of the world, and
who still had the sense to join the Nazi party, would be something great in the
world.
In March 1959, Rockwell founded the
World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists. In December of that same year, the party was
renamed the American Nazi Party. The headquarters
was set up not far away from where Karl went to school. Even at the young age of fourteen, Karl
couldn’t help but think that there was more going on behind the scenes than
everyone was letting on. The Nazis were
making a move. After four years of
private lessons from his three tutors, Karl had learned the subtle acts of
moving events around to set oneself up politically. He wondered if Mr. Rockwell had been groomed
as he was being groomed. He wondered if
Mr. Rockwell was another SS officer who had infiltrated the Capitalists
ranks. He wondered what kind of man Mr.
Rockwell was. He knew, somehow, that he
would be meeting this Mr. Rockwell.
As it turned out, Karl was
right. George Rockwell was an old friend
of his grandfather. Mr. Rockwell came to
Karls house often over the next year. He
and Karl’s grandfather would speak late into the night about politics, and the
old ways of the National Socialist party.
His grandfather was a little more reserved in what he said, but Mr.
Rockwell was outspoken. He would shout,
“Heil, Hiter,” often in their late-night conversations. Karl would sometimes stay up late, and site
against the wall next to the door to listen to his grandfather teaching Mr.
Rockwell.
April 3, 1960, George Rockwell held
a rally at the National Mall in Washington D.C.
Karl was allowed to attend the rally from a distance, and in
disguise. In his two-hour long speech,
Rockwell repeated many of the things that Karl had heard his grandfather teach
in those late night conversations.
Rockwell had a second rally planned
in New York City, but the mayor refused to grant him a permit to speak. Karl knew that George Rockwell was not a man
to be refused. Sure enough, Rockwell
appealed to the New York Supreme Court.
Karl’s grandfather bought a T.V. in anticipation for the event. Upon leaving the court during a recess, Mr.
Rockwell was confronted by a crowd of T.V. reporters, Jewish war veterans, and
Holocaust survivors. Karl watched as one
of the reporters asked what Rockwell would do with the Jews if he came into
power in the U.S. Rockwell calmly stated
that he would treat them like any other American citizen. If they were loyal Americans, everything
would be fine. If they were traitors,
they would be executed. The reporter
pressed further by asking how many Jews Rockwell believed to be traitors. When Rockwell responded, “Ninty percent,” the
gathered Jews rioted. The beat the
reporter and Rockwell with umbrellas and anything else they could find. It took a police escort to get Rockwell out
of the predicament. Karl watched the
television in awe at what was happening.
He could scarcely believe that the Jews would have the audacity to
strike a superior. His view of how
things should be was rattled. For the
first time in his young life, he began to wonder how hard it would actually be
to effect real change in this Capitalistic society.
Karl’s lessons began to
change. His tutors began teaching him
about subtlety. He asked Angel why they
had changed, and she said, “Mr. Rockwell has lit the fire for others to see,
but it is the smoke that most often kills.
You must become the smoke, Karl.
You must infiltrate their government and suffocate the Capitalists from
the inside. Your father, the Fuhrer,
fought an outward war. Sadly, the National
Socialist Party was not big enough.
Today, George Rockwell will get the Nazi name in the papers again. He will draw the attention of the world so
that others looking for the light can find us.
You, mine young pupil, will be the new Fuhrer. You will lead those looking for the light,
and those who are confused. You will be
a good shepherd for those lost sheep.”
Karl felt himself nodding. He was only fifteen, but he was old enough to
understand the responsibility that was being laid upon his shoulders. It was Mr. Rockwell’s job to draw attention
while Karl slipped behind the ranks of the American government, and instill the
National Socialists’ ideologies. His
subtlety would be his strength. Like his
father, his charisma would be his power, and the lost sheep would follow him
anywhere.
Chapter 4
In 1963, Karl graduated from the
academy, and moved on to a two year college.
He was starting to come into his own.
His tutors had given him the basics, and his own mind had filled in the
blanks. Karl was starting to forge his
own destiny. His grandfather, Albrecht,
and Mr. Rockwell were still always there to help direct and teach him, but Karl
was learning things on his own, now. He
kept in contact with Angel, too. She was
taking more part in Mr. Rockwell’s protests and rallies. Mr. Rockwell had a wife (his second,
actually). She was an Icelandic woman
named Margrét Þóra Hallgrímsson. Margret suddenly moved back to Iceland with
their four children in 1963, and Karl thought he knew why. Angel was a beautiful woman, after all. What man could resist such a perfect Aryan
specimen?
1963-1965 – Karl went to Shimer
College. It was a school with a subset
of intellectual professors and sophisticated students. The exclusive, small classes operated under
the “Hutchins Plan”. It was a
pedagogical program which follows a Socratic style of educating. This was significant for Karl’s development
because the classes were not lectures from textbooks of set and accepted
knowledge, but allowed students to discuss original source material. It gave Karl the freedom to pursue his
ideology, learn politics and writing, and not be over-encumbered with the
doctrines of a capitalistic society. Karl
instantly found that he loved politics.
Democratic politics were so easy to manipulate because there was so much
left to the interpretation of the laws.
On Feb. 18, 1965, Karl made his first political speech. A group of students were moving to persuade
the board of trustees to divest the college of its investments in the
U.S.S.R.
Karl’s speech was planned as a
carefully rehearsed piece of street theater.
Two students dressed as Russian soldiers dragged him off before he could
finish, dramatizing the plight of the German soldiers who were merely following
orders. The Russians wanted to execute
50,000-100,000 soldiers. Karl almost
didn’t have to act as the two students pulled him off stage. He was thinking about the hate these people
had for the soldiers from the war. He
wanted to stay up there and talk some sense into them. From that day on, Karl was determined to
change the perception the American people had of the Nazi Party.
At the end of 1963, President John
F. Kennedy was assassinated. Karl wasn’t
sad that the democratic president had been killed, but the motives behind the
killing were frightening. Angel came to
visit him, and told him that the Communists were behind the assassination. While the socialists moved to take control
over America, the Communists were making a move of their own. They had infiltrated the mafia, white house,
and CIA. Kennedy knew about this
infiltration, but couldn’t do anything about it because of the depth in which
the infiltrators reached. Instead, he
made it policy to attack the mob. He
wouldn’t give in to pressures to attack Cuba.
He wouldn’t give in to the demands of the banks, run by the Communist
Party. There was even talk that his own
CIA had been used to carry out the assassination. Angel felt that Kennedy could be a National
Socialist if he only had the chance to sit down with one of their leaders. The Communists had to be stopped. The struggle for power, which Hitler won in
Germany, was starting again in America.
After the conversation with Angel, Karl mourned the loss of the
President.
Karl transferred to Columbia
University in 1965, as a 20-year-old junior.
He majored in science, focusing on politics. There wasn’t a degree for political science
at Columbia University at the time, but the degree name didn’t matter to Karl. He spent most of his time in the library, and
didn’t make many friends. Karl was
trying to keep a low profile because America was on the verge of a war with
Vietnam. The general populace didn’t
know much about the war at the time other than that there were some troops over
there, but Karl’s informants warned him of the impending war. They said that things were getting bad, and
over the next few years, the situation would become worse. He was the perfect age to be drafted, but
they were going to do all they could to prevent that from happening. He was instructed to simply keep his head
down, get a degree, and move on. Karl
made few friends while at Columbia University.
In 1966, the Nazi party began to
make a move. A man named James Meredith
was shot by a shotgun while doing a “March Against Fear”. A group of black activist rose up to finish
Meredith’s march. Stokely Carmichael,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Floyd Mckissick, Cleveland Sellers, and several
other black activists marched and rallied for black rights. Stokely Carmichael was arrest, and upon
release, gave a speech about “black power”.
The group of activist chose a black panther as their mascot, and called
itself the Black Panthers.
Mr. Rockwell heard this debate, and
altered the phrase to “white power”.
Because of Karl’s grandfather’s teachings, Mr. Rockwell didn’t fight
these groups. Instead he heralded them
for doing the best job at promoting integrity and pride among their
people. Instead of preaching
intolerance, Mr. Rockwell was promoting racial separation. He even met with several leaders of different
races. He met with Elijah Muhammad (an
African-American religious leader who lead the Nation of Islam), and commended
him for promoting pride in his own race.
Rockwell even went so far as to call him the “black people’s Hitler”. Karl thought that might be going a little too
far, but he understood the motives behind it.
All of his education had helped him to understand that if you wanted to
lead a people, you had to connect with them on a fundamental level, and then
build on that relationship of trust. Mr.
Rockwell had labeled a man named Malcolm X as the next true leader of the black
people. Despite this, Malcolm X
threatened Rockwell when Rockwell was on tour with the Nazi message in the
south. Karl would use that later, when
he campaigned for National Socialism.
There was too much hate between races.
They needed to be separated, and controlled. Only a strong leader could control the
masses, and give each race what they deserved.
Of course, there were radicals who
were still doing things the wrong way.
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was the first and foremost, but Karl’s tutors had
taught him that radicals were good for publicity; any publicity was good
publicity. Just as Hitler’s multiple
losses in attempts to be made chancellor had brought him the attention of the
nation, the KKK’s blatant hatred of race, color, and creed would draw attention
to the message. Later, when Karl had
power behind him, he could refine the message into something everyone would be
able to accept.
Mr. Rockwell was doing his job, in
paving the way for Karl. He was clearing
the stigma America had on the Nazis. He
explained that the Holocaust never happened.
Karl had to laugh at the very idea.
To think that Adolf Hitler, the greatest ruler ever, could kill
6,000,000 Jews was just ridiculous. The
Nazis simply separated the Jews from the Aryan race. Those people resisted, and needed to be
imprisoned while Germany expanded its borders.
Hitler couldn’t have civil war while he was trying to better his
nation. The Capitalist had invented
horror stories so that they could justify their actions in World War II. Karl would soon rectify those injustices. First, though, he had to create sympathy for
the Nazis. He was starting to understand
that Capitalists, and especially Americans, wanted nothing more than for every
person to be free and equal. The idea
was not too different from the Nazi message.
However, people needed strong leadership. The Aryan’s were to be those leaders. Once the people had strong leaders, they
could live free, separated into their proper races, and equal amongst
themselves. The Americans thought they
could be equal while mixing races and religions. Karl could not understand how they could be
blind to the fact that that ideal would never work. Even nature had marked the races with
different colors so that they could stay together in groups of their own
kind. That was why they needed strong
leaders, like Karl; to help them overcome their own ignorance. Karl would fulfill Hitler’s dream. He would give everyone what they wanted.
Rockwell had been busy traveling
the world to set up the Nazi order. By
1966, the Nazi party had presence in almost all of the nations of the
world. Mr. Rockwell published the first edition
of the National Socialist World (an
ideological journal of the World Union of National Socialists). Thousands of copies were sent out to the
elite well-educated, newspapers, libraries, and prominent right-winged
politicians. One in every twenty-five
free copies generated a subscription.
Karl was impressed that so many people were already ready to accept the
ideals of the National Socialist Party.
That same year, a brilliant man
named William Luther Pierce became associates with Rockwell. Karl wasn’t too impressed because the two
started focusing too much on the hate of other races, and not the supremacy of
the Aryan people. If you spoke only
about hate, you would only receive hate in return. From all of Karl’s tutelage he learned to be
more discrete. He needed to make the
people love him. He needed to be a man
of the people, not a hate-spewing racist.
It was, after all, for the betterment of all mankind to be separated
into their respective races so that they could be equal among peers. The cause of the Nazis was to make all people
equal. That could never happen when
there was rioting in the streets. The
Nazi dream could never be a reality as long as people, so obviously different,
continued to mix and associate with one another. Blacks would only be happy with other blacks,
Muslims with Muslims, Jews with Jews, Chinese with Chinese, and Whites with
Whites. The people needed a strong
people to maintain that order. They
needed the Aryan nation to lead and direct them.
Chapter 5
In 1967, George Lincoln Rockwell
was assassinated in the street while leaving a Laundromat. The gunman, John Patler, was a former member
of Rockwell’s group. Karl knew it was
time to separate himself from the American Nazi Party. Politically, they were hurting the
cause. Karl gathered together some of
the brightest minds from the National Socialist Party, and started training
them. There would be a new
movement. Karl’s one time mentor, George
Lincoln Rockwell, had sullied the Nazi name.
They could no longer call themselves Nazis. Now they would become simply American
Nationalists.
The year of 1967, was a violent
year. Karl, now 21, received notice that his fake father, Karl Schuhmacher Sr.
(If that was even his real name), had been in a car accident and died at the
age of 46. Karl’s mentor, Mr. Rockwell,
had been assassinated. The Vietnam War
was starting to heat up. There were more
military campaigns, and more outcries from the American citizens to end the
war. There were more than 500,000 troops
in Vietnam. More than 15,000 Americans
had died, and more than 100,000 had been injured, with no end in sight. 40,000 young men were called to service every
month, and Karl’s mentors were working around the clock to keep his name off the
list. In October of 1967, one of the
most prominent anti-war demonstration took place at the Lincoln Memorial. 100,000 protesters gathered to speak out
against the war. Later that night 30,000
continued to march on the pentagon and a confrontation between soldiers and the
protesters took place. Hundreds were
arrested. Martin Luther King jr. backed
the protesters, and the heat of the conflict flared.
Karl decided that in this time of
violence and anger, he would make a name for the American Nationalists
Party. He, and his followers, showed up
to the rally after the violence, and offered free medical attention to those
who needed it. He began a support clinic
for the injured Vietnam troops when they were sent home from the war. These men received hate and ridicule from the
very people they’d gone to protect. Karl
and his men earned their love and support by taking them in and sheltering them
from the ridicule of the world. Many of
the men joined his party and began to spread the good works of the American
Nationalists to others.
Karl pursued a career as a
community organizer to confront the issue of race and poverty. He wanted to gain the support of the lesser
races, so that when he began to separate the races, they would feel that it was
for their own good. He started black
only colleges, black only churches, black only schools, and did the same for
other races. The minority races flocked
to the idea of being separate. Karl knew
that it was because they didn’t want to intermingle with other races as much as
those races didn’t want to intermingle with them. They wanted their own culture that they could
be proud of.
Karl successfully carried out
several projects, including school reform, hazardous waste cleanup, and
establishing a job training center. He
developed jobs and work places that were black only. He developed workplaces that were Jew
only. He developed workplaces that were
White only. Even though the fight for
civil liberties was raging, the people took to Karl’s ideas. They wanted liberties. They wanted a chance at life. They wanted to be equal. But when it came down to it, they were more
comfortable staying in their racial, social, or religious groups. As long as they were given the same
opportunities, they were happy. Karl
made sure that every workplace was the same.
There was no special treatment given to any race or religion.
In 1968, war seemed to be the
language of the world. Conflict erupted
around the globe. North Korea seized a
U.S. ship, claiming it was spying. In
Vietnam, the Battle of Khe Sanh, one of the most controversial battles, took
place. Over 100,000 tons of bombs were
dropped by the U.S. Military. The Khe
Sanh Combat Base was finally overrun, and the U.S. destroyed it to avoid
another such conflict. The Nazis began
covert operations to weaken the militaries of its enemies. Four submarines were sunk; Israel’s INS
Dakar, France’s Minerve (s647), The Soviet’s K-129, and the USS Scorpion
(SSn-589). Israel and Jordan had border
disputes. Countless disputes over civil
rights erupted into violent actions. One
of the most notable was the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
April 4th, 1968, King
was shot and killed. He was in Tennessee
in support of the black sanitary public works employees. The assassination led to a nationwide wave of
race riots. Karl made sure that the
American Nationalist Party was at as many riots as possible to help with the
injured in the aftermath, making sure that none of his party ever participated
in the violence. The American
Nationalist Party began to make a name for its self. People on both sides of the conflict
respected what they stood for.
