Mila 18 - Leon Uris [231]
“I give you William Lloyd Garrison, master American propagandist.”
The muscles in Funk’s face knotted with anger. “Perhaps it would be more fitting if you quoted Nietzsche.”
“Ah yes. That great humanitarian, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. To enter into a higher civilization, a super-race must ruthlessly destroy the existing inferior civilizations. We must divest, purge, cleanse ourselves of Judeo-Christian perversions in order to achieve this ultimate form of life. Now, how’s that for Nietzsche, Alfred?”
“It is men like you, who compromise with sub-human forms of life, who will keep the German people from reaching their goals.”
Horst flopped his hands. “Here we go, underestimating the Americans again. A chronic, incurable illness of ours, underestimating Americans.” Horst settled opposite Funk’s chair, tilting the bottle of scotch once more. “I paraphrase an underestimated American. Reasonable men reason. Compassionate men show mercy. Tyrants destroy. We destroy because we must destroy because we must destroy.”
“You are playing dangerous games with this radical thinking, Horst. Take my advice. Change your tune. Berlin is not so happy over some of your attitudes.”
“Save it, Alfred. You will need apologists around like me after the Third Reich is crushed to expound the theories of apologetics. What shall I say? Ah yes, there was no one here but us anti-Nazis. What could we do? Orders were orders.”
“You speak treason against the Fatherland,” Funk said menacingly.
Horst jumped up from his seat and slammed the bottle on the desk. It was the first show of temper Alfred Funk had ever seen him make, and he was clearly startled into silence.
“Damn you!” Horst cried. “I am neither damned fool nor coward enough to keep smiling and pretending and clicking my heels and bowing from the waist in the face of absolute disaster. Say it, Alfred! Germany has lost the war!”
Funk’s eyes bulged with disbelief.
“We have lost the war! We have lost the war! We have lost the war!” Horst bellowed.
Funk paled and sat down.
“Now we have the opportunity to soften the blows of defeat if we have the intelligence to recognize defeat and prepare for it carefully. So, what do we do? Step up the murders at Auschwitz. Five thousand more Poles and Slavs a day ... We respond to the reality of defeat by throwing open the doors for our own destruction.”
Funk mopped his brow and smiled weakly. He thought he had better change the subject. Von Epp always tied him in knots when they argued. He was like the devil himself! One lovely day Himmler would tell him to get rid of Von Epp. What a pleasure that would be.
Alfred Funk cleared his throat. “One of the things I discussed with Goebbels concerns you. Next week we are to meet in Lublin and design a campaign to minimize the unpleasantness in Poland. We start by understating the numbers of Jews involved in the final solution. Then we deny the special-treatment camps have facilities for other than labor. Bone-crushing machines are being installed in all special-treatment centers to eliminate the evidence. In fact, those given special treatment by firing squads are being exhumed for cremation. Eichmann has full-time staffs at 4B making a duplicate set of records—court trials, epidemics, and such—which can account for a good part of the deaths. In Czechoslovakia, at Theresienstadt, we have established a model camp for Jews and invited the Red Cross to inspect it ...”
“Shut up, Alfred! We scratch like dogs to cover dung piles while we proceed to drown ourselves in our own vomit.”
Alfred Funk had that queasy feeling in his stomach again. He tested his words carefully. “The world has a short memory.”
“I think this time they are not going to forget. Jews have a long memory. They weep for temples lost two thousand years and they repeat old wives’ stories of liberations and rituals from the dawn of time. Do you know what an old Jew rabbi told me once when I asked him about Jewish memory?”
“What?”
“The words ‘I believe’ mean ‘I remember.’ Even Nietzsche is puzzled over their ability to outlive