Rabbi Hitler,Jesus Remembers an Unauthorized and Unorthodox Life of Jesus Christ, the Secret Life of Monsignor Justin Blayne, the Girl of the Forest

By Dominick Ricca

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 24, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465314741

Dominick Ricca

Author Bio: Coming Soon

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Rabbi Hitler,

Jesus Remembers

An Unauthorized and

Unorthodox Life of

Jesus Christ,

The Secret Life of

Monsignor Justin Blayne,

The Girl of the Forest

Dominick Ricca

Copyright © 2009 by Dominick Ricca.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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Contents

Foreword

TO THE MEMORY OF MY SISTER CARMELA RICCA WITH LOVE

Rabbi Hitler

Foreword

by Leyland Barrington, Editor and Translator

In accepting the task of editing this manuscript (and it was literally a manuscript, since it was handwritten), I did not anticipate the amount of work I would have to do. There were also some revisions I had to make, but without substantially altering anything.

Frankly, the manuscript was a mess, aside from being in such poor physical conditions. The spelling was slipshod. Many words were spelled several different ways. The capitalization was haphazard; the punctuation, fanciful; and the grammar was atrocious. As for the syntax, sometimes it was so scrambled and confusing that I had to rewrite whole paragraphs to achieve clarity and coherence.

But those were only mechanical difficulties. There was one serious problem for me in attempting to produce a readable book. The problem was the unaccountably missing pages in the manuscript, which is in the form of a diary. It was found in a Jerusalem synagogue when it was demolished to make room for a housing project. Two workers, in clearing out the cellar, found the manuscript behind a crudely bricked wall.

The pages of the diary had been packed into three bundles in thick bath towels and tied together with a thin rope. There was no question that the bundles had been behind that wall for years. They had fallen apart, possibly ripped open by rats, who very likely had devoured many of the pages.

That is enough, I think, about the condition, physically and otherwise, of the manuscript-diary.

And what are we to make of this diary? We have to consider a very important question: Is it authentic? Is it genuine? Is it truly the product of that man? Or is it the fictitious fabrication of a sick, deranged mind trying to perpetrate a vicious hoax on the world? and to mock the Jews?

But what kind of mind would want to perpetrate such a monumental and bizarre fraud on the world? Only an anti-Semitic sadist would want to inflict further pain and anguish on the Jews, who suffered so much from the writer of these pages, if indeed he wrote them.

In spite of the discovery of this diary, today in Israel, Rabbi Jacob Gessler is revered as a saint and hero. Scores of Jews have testified to his acts of discreet charity. No one who came to him for financial assistance was turned away empty-handed. The name of Jacob Gessler is mentioned a number of times in the military reports during the fighting in 1948 as having saved the lives of many wounded Jews. He was too old to fight in that momentous conflict, and so he enlisted in the medical corps.

The opinion as to the genuineness of the diary among Jews in America and Israel is heavily in favor of believing that it is a sickening and disgusting fraud. They cannot possibly bring themselves to believe that the saintly rabbi Jacob Gessler and that monster Adolf Hitler are one and the same person. That is understandable. How could Jews the world over come to accept as truth that the greatest enemy in their long-suffering history of persecution converted to Judaism and lived that pious Jewish life all those years and in the Holy Land?

My opinion is that the diary is genuine, authentic, because it is just too fantastic that any person, sane or insane, could dream up, conceive, of such a radical transformation in a human being. I am convinced that Adolf Hitler went from being the foul, ruthless killer of millions of Jews to becoming a Jewish saint because the most imaginative writer could not conceive of such a mind-boggling change in a man. We live in a strange world, and strange things do happen in it.

I shall end with this one piece of information. The writing in the diary has been compared by a number of eminent graphologists with memos written by the führer during the years of the Third Reich. Unfortunately, no unanimous conclusions have been reached. The experts are divided. Some say the writing is that of Hitler, and others are not so sure. The readers of this diary can make their own judgment.

These introductory remarks were on the first page of the diary.

I am a feeble old man now. I know I do not have long life to live. Many years have passed since I strutted around in my resplendent uniform with the Nazi armband as the absolute dictator of Germany. Countless times at rallies, after I made a bombastic, idiotic speech, ranting like the madman I was, I heard the thunderous applause in my honor and the tens of thousands of people chanting over and over, Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!

How I cringe with shame and revulsion whenever I recall those rallies. What a clown I was and what fools the Germans were. To them I was a living god whom they worshipped and adored. At least the ancient Romans waited until their emperors were dead before deifying them.

How it sickens me to think of those times, much as I try to forget them. How could a whole nation fall under the hypnotic power of one man? What is the answer? Could it be that underneath their arrogance the Germans are docile, submissive sheep? Or perhaps the answer is the flunky and controlled press, led on by my minister of propaganda, that club-footed expert liar Joseph Goebbels. Every day he drummed it into the heads of the people that I was the greatest spellbinding orator of all time.

Spellbinding orator-rubbish! Some years ago, on a visit to Nazareth, I was surprised to find a book with a collection of my speeches in a secondhand bookstore. What a pompous ignoramus I was! What imbecilic, fatuous words I spoke! Every sentence expressed moronic nonsense. They were not the speeches of a rational human being. They were the ravings of a demented crackbrain and egomaniac.

That is the past, my infamous past.

But in the last three or four years I have sat up for many sleepless nights, pondering a question, haunted by it: what turned me into a venomous, rabid anti-Semite? There were few Jews in Linz, where I grew up, and I hardly ever saw them or spoke to one.

So it had to be in my Vienna years when the virus of anti-Semitism poisoned my soul. It was in that imperial city that I developed that demonic hatred of the Jews.

Only once in my life did I have a personal encounter with a Jew, and that was when my mother, whom I loved so very much, was dying of breast cancer. She was being treated by a Jewish doctor.

One day he sent for me. When I was seated in front of his desk, he looked at me sadly for a minute or two without speaking.

Doctor, you have something to tell me?

Yes, I have.

It’s about my… mother, isn’t it?

Yes, Adolf, it is. Your mother is… dying.

No, no, Doctor, no! I said, standing up, tears filling my eyes. She’s not going to die! I need her, I need my mother!

Adolf, there is nothing I can do for her. There is nothing medicine can do for her. She has only a few months. I’m… sorry.

I fell back in the chair, sobbing like a child. The doctor came around from his desk and put his hand on my shoulder. Several times he sighed deeply.

How I wish I could do something to save her! he said with deep feeling. But, Adolf, you must not let your mother’s death destroy you. You must go on being her son, make a life for yourself. Where she is, she will know and be proud of her son, Adolf.

Thank you, Doctor, thank you, I said, wiping away the tears. I stood up and looked into his eyes, and never in my life did I see such pity and compassion in the eyes of a human being.

After the funeral, I returned to Vienna, and the corruption of my mind began.

I found there a vigorous anti-Semitic press, frank and forthright in expressing its implacable hatred of the Jews. That was bad enough. But there was also an abundance of cheap, trashy anti-Jewish pamphlets that were even worse, more vicious. And they were available everywhere. They were on the newsstands, in bookstores, and in the lending libraries. They were even hawked in the streets by wild-eyed peddlers.

In these pamphlets, Jews were either sexual monsters intent on seducing and debauching Christian girls, or they were swindlers, unscrupulous financial manipulators on a gigantic scale, and other kinds of crooks. And of course they enlarged on the international conspiracy of the Elders of Zion—a vast global Jewish network whose goal was to make the Jews the masters of the world. All fatuous anti-Semitic paranoia.

When I read this childishly inane and vulgar hate material, I was amused, but also disgusted. How could grown-up people write such filth and nonsense? I asked myself. Who would believe the idiotic stuff that was in those pamphlets?

That was how I thought before I went for my entrance examination at the technical school. How I burned with the ambition to be an architect!

But I failed the test. They said my drawings were terrible and that I needed more schooling. I told them I didn’t need more schooling, all that unnecessary technical knowledge. I had talent, inspiration! But they only laughed at me.

The shock of failing the examination crushed me, filled me with despair. My soaring dream of becoming a famous architect seemed to fall to the ground with a thud.

Broken in spirit, I took to sitting for hours in cafes, brooding and sometimes flipping through the newspapers. When my money ran out, I went to the shelter for homeless men. How I hated going to that place. I lived and ate with those men—derelicts, bums, failures. That searing experience filled me with shame.

I began to think of why I was blocked from getting into the technical school. And then I remembered that many of the teachers were Jews. In my raging frustration, I convinced myself that I had not failed the examination. I had passed it! I told myself. It was the Jewish teachers! They had lied to me! They didn’t want me to succeed!

From then on, I spent those long hours in the cafes avidly reading and agreeing with those pamphlets I had recently scorned. Everything they said was true! I told myself. And I was the living proof! I was one of the victims of Jewish malice! I swore that if ever I had the power to strike back at them, I would! I would make them pay dearly for all my suffering!

No longer did I hang my head in shame when I walked the streets. I was too angry to feel any shame. Now the feelings that took hold of me were bitterness against the Jews, hatred against the Jews, and a fierce desire to hurt them.

I began to notice something in the streets that I had never before noticed. The streets seemed to be swarming with Jews from the ghettos of Eastern Europe. Every day the anti-Jewish press was filled with articles about them, demanding that the government put a stop to the influx of all these Jews from the East. How strongly I agreed with those articles.

One day I was walking in the old inner city. I saw a man approaching me. He was wearing a black caftan, and he had a black beard and black earlocks. As he came near, I inhaled the rank odor of his body. And when he was close-up, I took a good look at him. The first question that came to me was, is this a German? And the next question was, is this a human being, like the rest of us?

I think it was at that moment that the ferocious hatred of the Jew flamed up in me. Before I had hated the Jews with a bitter resentment, and I wanted to inflict harm on them. But now I had a murderous hatred in my heart for the Jews.

From then on, I was a confirmed anti-Semite, proudly, loudly, and defiantly proclaiming my hatred of the Jews. And what an emotional relief and boost it was for me when I did so. There were dark times in my rise to power when I felt discouraged and despondent whenever yet another crisis, another seemingly insurmountable problem, confronted me. At times like that, all I had to do was think of the Jews, and my hatred of them acted like a strong stimulant, like a narcotic. It set my blood boiling, and it filled me with a kind of euphoric hatred, animating me and getting me back to action with renewed dynamic energy.

And no one could talk me out of my anti-Semitism. Many times in beer halls and in the streets I had violent exchanges with hecklers who defended the Jews when I was making a speech. But I always shut them up, not by logic, but by shouting them down.

One day I even found an unusual use for my hatred of the Jews. I was in bed with a woman, but no matter what she did, I could not get an erection. And then I had an idea. I began cursing the Jews with the filthiest words I could think of, and my penis instantly became hard as a steel rod. I realized then that my hatred of the Jews was an emotional and sexual necessity to me.

Well, that is the genesis of my anti-Semitism, which for many years now fills me with shame, disgust, and self-loathing. I am not offering an explanation for the Jew-hater I became. What good would an explanation accomplish? No good at all. I cannot apologize for the killing of millions of Jews as if I were an exterminator ridding a house of vermin. And what good would an apology do? I am and will always be guilty of the most monstrous crime in the long history of evil and wickedness—the Holocaust.

Numerous times I have held memorial services here in my Jerusalem synagogue for the Jews who perished in the death camps. And while the Jews grieved and mourned silently, shedding tears of sorrow for all those millions of men, women, and children I had gassed to death, my tears were bitter, and my anguish almost drove me insane.

I cannot count the nights I lay awake until dawn burning tears of guilt running down my cheeks, thinking, thinking of the Jews who walked into those chambers to take a shower and—

I know I cannot ask for forgiveness for the greatest of all crimes the Jews have suffered. How could I ask for their forgiveness? And I cannot ask for forgiveness from all those others in Europe I slaughtered in various ways. And I left behind me a devastated continent.

All I can hopefully do is ask God to forgive me. Or can there never be forgiveness for Adolf Hitler? Not even from a merciful God?

(Editor’s note: There is no explanation as to why the diary begins on this date.)

July 18, 1944. East Prussia.

The war is going badly for us. We have been doing nothing but retreating, in France, in Italy, and on the Eastern Front. Our armies must stop retreating! We are outnumbered and outgunned on all fronts. But what does that matter? The will can overcome all material force. I believe in the triumph of the will! I must instill in my doubting and pessimistic generals my fiery will to victory! Where the German soldier plants his foot, he must not retreat in panic! He must fight and die if need be where he is!

In two days I am going to make the speech of my life at a military conference. I have ordered all the senior commanders on the Eastern Front to be present at this conference. I will tell those generals that they must rid themselves of the spirit of defeat and regain the spirit of victory. It was that fighting spirit that gave us those blitzkrieg victories in Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Jugoslavia, Greece, and in the early months of our invasion of Russia.

Now Germany faces invasion from the East and from the West. But I am confident that if I can win a few decisive battles, I can turn the course of the war completely around. First I must drive the Americans and the British back across the channel. Once that is accomplished, I can turn my full might against the Russians, annihilate their armies, and then march on Moscow. And when I reach that city, I swear I will hang that Stalin from the Kremlin walls!

July 25, 1944. Berlin.

I’m glad I decided a week ago to keep a diary. I am lying in a hospital bed here in Berlin. My hand is shaking as I write these words. The most unspeakable, the most horrible crime in the history of Germany has been committed. Rotten German traitors have attempted to kill me in a bomb plot!

But they failed, they failed! Providence saved my life that I may carry out my mission! And I will do just that!

I did receive some slight wounds. I have some loss of hearing, and my left arm is not 100 percent, but otherwise, thanks to Providence, I suffered no serious injury.

How did those vile traitors dare to assassinate me, Adolf Hitler, their führer! Did they forget the terrible condition Germany was in when I became chancellor? Political strife was paralyzing the country. We had millions unemployed. The morale of the people was low. The Versailles treaty had forced on Germany a puny army of only a hundred thousand men.

But when I came to power, everything changed! I ended the political tumult that was racking the country. I brought full employment to the nation. Economic stagnation ended, and the German economy was revitalized under my leadership. The spirit of the German people soared. Life in Germany became good, became joyful. And I achieved one other very important thing. I rearmed Germany in spite of that detestable Versailles treaty! Once again other nations respected us, and what was more important, they feared us!

All those spectacular acheivements of mine and the glorious military victories at the beginning of this war, those worms, those traitors who tried to kill me, have forgotten. Why? Because the war is temporarily going against us. But not for long, not for long!

I don’t know how regular I can be with this diary. I doubt that I’ll have time to jot down a few lines every day, what with my responsibilities as chancellor and supreme commander of the Wehrmacht. But I will try to get down a few lines now and then.

Himmler came to visit me the first day I was brought to the hospital. I curtly cut short his effusion of sympathy and his repeated expressions of undying loyalty to me by demanding, Have you started making arrests?

My führer, we are making a thorough investigation, gathering evidence and—

To the devil with your investigation and wasting time on getting evidence! Do you have suspects?

Thousands of suspects, my führer.

That is all the evidence you need! If a person is a suspect, he is guilty! Himmler, these foul creatures tried to blow me up, me, Adolf Hitler—their führer! They deserve no consideration, no mercy! You must deal with them ruthlessly! All involved, however remotely, in this diabolical plot must die!

Yes, yes, my führer! They will face Nazi justice!

I want them shot and hanged after they have been tortured into confessing and even if they don’t confess! Tell me, is there an inner circle of plotters that you know of?

Yes, hundreds of army men and civilians, my führer.

Those traitorous dogs will receive special treatment!

What do you have in mind, my führer?

I want those men slowly garroted with piano wire. And even death by strangulation is too good for them!

Anything else, my führer?

Yes, Himmler, there is something else. I want the garroting of each of those dogs filmed! I want to see the men who tried to kill me die in slow agony!

July 30, 1944. Berchtesgaden.

I arrived at the Berghof last night. I am glad I had this beautiful mansion built for myself years ago. I always liked to get away from the hustle and bustle of Berlin and enjoy the peace and quiet.

August 5, 1944. Berchtesgaden.

I am still here at the Berghof, resting and recuperating. My hearing has improved, but my arm is still sore. How good it is to get away from the war and not to have to make hard decisions. Whenever aides come to me with military reports, I wave them away.

I have broken myself of the habit of staying up late at night and waking up ten or eleven o’clock in the morning. For the last three mornings, I have gone for long walks in the woods. I have told my bodyguards to keep at least two hundred feet behind me. They are in civilian clothes as are all the men here at the Berghof.

How I hate the sight of military uniforms! Since I became chancellor of Germany, I seem to be surrounded by men in uniforms. And it got even worse when the war started.

In the mornings, I so much look forward to my long walks in the woods, quiet except for the cheerful chirping of the birds. Sometimes I stop and stare up for a long time at the majestic, snowcapped mountains. They have been there for millions of years. They will be there for many millions of more years.

Looking up at those stone giants set me to thinking. How foolish we humans are to be forever feeling that we are overwhelmed with worries, problems, anxieties. We should learn to enjoy every day of our lives, every minute… every moment.

August 9, 1944. Berchtesgaden.

There is no use hiding the fact from me. I have done much reflecting in the quiet woods. I am not the same man I was on July 19, the day before the bomb plot against me. A profound change has come over me. I don’t know for sure what has caused it. I think it is more than these moody walks in the woods. Yes, they had a lot to do with my changed mentality. But I think that attempt to kill me has something to do with the transformation that has taken place in me.

August 13, 1944. Berchtesgaden.

Last night I sat alone in my study for hours making a calm assessment of this change in me. The biggest difference in me now is that I no longer have that hard, brutal fanaticism. It just seems to have drained out of me, along with my hatreds and my frustrations. But I know I have a long way to go to being a normal human being. I still feel that dictatorial arrogance in me.

But I think I have acquired some clarity and objectivity about the world around me, especially about the war. I see quite clearly that the war is irretrievably lost. I should have realized it when we failed to stop the Normandy invasion. We didn’t, and that was the beginning of the end for Germany, for me.

I think that in less than a year Berlin, all of Germany, will be occupied by foreign troops. This will be even worse than our defeat in World War I. At least after our surrender we did not have to endure foreign occupation.

So that is how things stand. Germany is on the brink of her most humiliating defeat in war. By losing the war, the Germans have proved that they are not worthy of my genius and that they are not the master race I thought they were. Let them suffer the consequences of their inferiority.

Survival of the fittest—that is my basic credo! And speaking of survival, I intend to survive this bloody war! Once the Allies get their hands on me, I know what to expect. A trial with a predictable verdict and the hangman’s noose for me. Adolf Hitler, hanged like a common criminal. Swift justice and dangling from a rope.

But they have to get their hands on me. I must devise some way to escape the hangman’s noose, save my skin, my neck.

What a list of charges the Allies will bring against me. Never in history has a single individual been guilty (yes, I admit it) of such crimes.

After destroying democracy in Germany in 1933, I started in a modest way in my career of crime by setting up a few concentration camps for those who had been on my shit list for years and whom I considered enemies of the state and potential troublemakers.

It was when I invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, that I really warmed up in the business of killing on a mass scale, when I launched my campaign against the Jews—the Final Solution, it was to be.

Once I got started, killing in huge numbers came easy to me. I killed them in the death camps, in the concentration camps, and in one other way. That was my reprisal order. In countries where guerrillas were active and attacked German units, I gave the order that for one German soldier killed by those guerrilla bandits in Russia, Jugoslavia, and Greece, fifty civilians were to be shot.

If ten German soldiers were killed in a skirmish with Russian guerrillas, fine. Our men were to go to the nearest town or village, round up five hundred men, women, and children and shoot them down.

I did not relish giving that order, but I had to protect my soldiers. Small killings of my men would be met by massive killings of civilians. But what did that matter in a country like Russia? Stalin had starved to death millions in his forced collectivization program in the early ’30s.

I wonder how man people I have slaughtered to date. Himmler has been giving me occasional reports in the last couple of years on the work that has been done in Poland. I don’t remember the last figures he gave me, but I am sure the number of Jews gassed to death is in the millions. All told, that country has lost about six million of its population, roughly half of them Christian and the other half Jews.

Our forces have shot to death millions in our retaliation killings. And then there are the deaths in the concentration camps. I guess I can say I am responsible for more than ten million deaths, not to mention the many millions more who have died in the war started by me. How many would that come to? thirty million? thirty-five million?

Quite impressive numbers I have racked up. And I thought I was going to be a failure, a nobody, when I was turned down by that technical school in Vienna so many years ago!

I did all right with what I had, which was no more than a high school education. Ah, those miserable days in Vienna when I lived in that dismal shelter for homeless men! How I seethed with frustration and impotent rage at the world for doing me dirty! I would get even with the world, yes, by God, I would get even with it!

How I burned with shame and anger when I stood outside a fancy restaurant in my rags on a cold winter night and saw inside a fat big-nosed Jew sitting at a table with a Christian girl and stuffing himself. How it galled me to think that some hours later that greasy, stinking Jew would be bouncing up and down on that woman’s belly in some hotel room!

But I finally had my revenge, and did I have it! Now there are no longer any Jews in my beloved Vienna! And no Jews in my native Austria! Millions of those subhumans have gone up in smoke in my crematories! And hundreds of thousands of them are slave laborers in my concentration camps and being worked to death!

To get back to me, my problem. My plan of being master of all of Europe will not be realized. The Americans, the British, and the Russians will conquer Germany. That is for sure.

Is it too much to hope that their grand alliance will fall apart and that they will fight among themselves? Probably they will, but only after they have beaten us.

The Americans are motivated either by their greed for wealth or their naive and foolish idealism. When they are not trying to reform you, they are trying to rob you. The British are no better. They have the soul of shopkeepers. All they want is more property, more territory to add to their empire.

How different the Russians are! Under their inspired and ruthless leadership, they openly proclaim as their goal the conversion of the whole human race to the egalitarian blessings of communism.

That is what they say. But Stalin and his fellow cutthroats are really deep down no more than gangsters. And what is it gangsters always want? They want more of what they already have! Their appetite, like that of the capitalists, is insatiable for loot and plunder. The capitalists achieve their goal by perverting and prostituting the law like a clever sneak. The communists get their way with the gun and the knout. The communist and the capitalist, underneath their skin—one of a kind!

The hell with all of them. The war is lost. I am resigned to that simple fact. Now I have to think of how I can save my skin. I will not die like a cornered rat in a hole by killing myself. And I will not give those bastards the chance to string me up! I will survive this war! I have to keep telling myself that! Somehow, I will find a way to go on living!

My life is more precious than all the millions of lives I have snuffed out. And for some reason I cannot fathom, it is because I slaughtered all those people that my life has become more precious to me. I cannot understand my thinking that way, but that is the way I feel.

August 17, 1944. Berchtesgaden.

Yesterday I gave Eva permission to join me here at the Berghof for a few days. She was staying at her apartment in Munich. I don’t particularly care for her shallow girl’s chatter, but sometimes I do feel a great need for her.

I am enjoying my stay here in the Obersalzberg. I do love the peace and quiet of my silent retreat. As I gaze out of the broad window, I feel like a god looking down at the futile activities of the scrambling humans struggling to get along.

When I start up at the beautiful mountain scenery, the war seems so far away. In Russia, Italy, and France, men are dying nasty, bloody deaths, all because of me. And yet I feel nothing, nothing at all. All that violent conflict seems so remote from me.

Why is that? I’ve already said it. It is because of the different man I’ve become. I am totally indifferent toward the war because I know we are going to lose. The only thing I think of is that I want to go on living, go on breathing. How I wish I could spend the rest of my life here in the Berghof, among these beautiful monuments of nature—the mountains! But that is impossible.

August 19, 1944. Berchtesgaden.

Last night Eva and I slept together. She satisfied my peculiar sexual desires, as she always does, without asking why I like being sexually gratified that way. She is like a sex slave to me, and that is why, although I don’t love her (I am incapable of loving a human being, except my mother), I have developed a fondness and affection for that empty-headed female.

While we were lying in bed, Eva mentioned marriage to me—again. She is always bringing up the subject of our getting married, and I always put her off by saying I am married to Germany. Germany, who gives a damn for Germany and the Germans!

August 22, 1944. Berchtesgaden.

I’m still at the Berghof, enjoying my regular schedule: a pleasant morning walk, a snooze after lunch, and then at night, I watch American films. I have to admit, those damn Americans certainly know how to make good movies.

August 23, 1944.

My day was spoiled by two generals. I permitted them to speak to me in private. They were sent by Jodl, my operations chief. He wants me to return to East Prussia immediately. They urgently need me out there to make some major decisions.

The fools, don’t they realize that any decision I make will not change the course of the war, that defeat is staring us in the face? Why don’t they see that? Maybe they do, but they know that I have strongly denounced any defeatist talk from my generals and have threatened with a firing squad anyone who even hints about surrendering to that crippled bastard Roosevelt, that boozer Churchill, and my onetime ally Stalin.

But for many weeks, I haven’t thought like that. Well, all right, I might as well do what Jodl wants, play along with them, go back to being the supreme warlord!

August 27, 1944. East Prussia.

Here I am, back in my headquarters compound code-named Wolfsschanze (Wolf’s Lair), and how I hate it! I see uniforms and more uniforms! How I hate the sight of all those military uniforms! What a relief it was when Speer came to visit me from Berlin. He was in blessed civilian clothes! I listened to what he had to say, patted him on the back, and told him he was doing a fine job and to get back to Berlin. All a stupid waste of time! Don’t those educated asses like Speer know the war is over and we have lost it?

August 30, 1944. East Prussia.

I go through the charade of listening intently and with a serious face to the military reports from the various fronts. All the time I am thinking, how the hell am I going to get out of this war-racked Europe and save my skin?

Tonight I listened for over an hour to Jodl droning on and on, first about the Russian front and then about the fighting against the British and the Americans. He wasn’t telling me anything new. It was the same thing—retreat, retreat, retreat.

I think Jodl was surprised that I did not interrupt him while he talked. I detected a queer look in his eye. Usually I break in with a dozen questions and then launch into a speech as to the kind of strategy and tactics we should be using against our enemies. Sometimes I talk for two hours. And then I can see how restless the generals get. I can see how they are craving to go out and chain-smoke three or four cigarettes. They know that they cannot smoke in my presence. That is strictly forbidden.

But of course I cannot stop them when they raise their hands like children in a classroom and say they have to do wee-wee. When they return fifteen minutes later, their breaths are reeking of tobacco smoke.

When Jodl was finally done with his report, I asked a few questions, although I had not heard half of what he had been talking about. My mind was far, far away. After I asked those questions, I fell silent, just staring down at the maps on the table. Of course I wasn’t even seeing the maps. My mind was back in the Obersalzberg, and I wished I was there, walking in the peaceful woods.

The silence became awkwardly prolonged and uncomfortable. A general coughed, and another whispered something I didn’t catch. No one dared break in on the thoughts the führer was having.

I began to get an uneasy feeling. Did those grim-looking generals standing around the map table sense that I saw that the war was clearly lost? But, no, I told myself. That was nonsense. How could they think that of their führer?

Nevertheless I knew that I had to put on an act. And so I went into one of my interminable spiels about how we had to stop the enemy at all costs, that by imposing iron discipline on our troops we still had a very good chance of winning this war. Yes, we had to stiffen the spines of our heroic soldiers and rouse the home front to fight a total war, and victory would be ours! And more of the same rubbish.

I asked for suggestions.

Keitel was the first to speak.

Why not, my führer, have Goebbels mount a massive propaganda campaign! Giant posters plastered all over Germany depicting what barbarians the Russians, Americans, and British are! The posters will show the savage enemy soldiers raping our women! What do you think, my führer? Won’t such an effort bring us victory?

Splendid idea, Keitel! I said. An inspired idea! But I was really thinking, what an absolute dunce you are, Keitel! Tanks, planes, artillery, and men can’t stop our enemies. But posters will!

Years ago, I had made Keitel a field marshal in a solemn ceremony, personally handing him the field marshal’s baton. I had a hard time not bursting out laughing. He is nothing but my office manager, that’s all he’s good for. Field Marshal Keitel! Field Marshal Dumbhead!

September 4, 1944. Berlin.

I arrived in the capital last night. I had to get away from that unnatural, claustrophobic life we live in the Wolf’s Lair. I feel terribly uncomfortable when I am there. Armed guards, barbed wire, steel, and concrete—and those damn military uniforms everywhere! How I hate it all! And there’s another thing. Those Russians are coming on fast!

As my reason for wanting to get away from that dreary garrison life in the Wolf’s Lair, I told Jodl I had some important party work to do in the capital. Of course he urged me to stay, but I said he could send me on daily military reports, which I intend to throw away without reading them. It would be all a waste of time anyway.

How good it was to ride through the streets of Berlin, even though there are areas I no longer recognize because of the heavy bombing raids. After seeing block after block of piles of rubble where building once stood, I stopped looking out the window and closed my eyes. What a mess I’ll be leaving behind.

How good it was to sleep