(Edit as of April 6, 2011 - fixed the formatting on page breaks. Sorry.)
First off, before I write a single word of this actual story, I want to reiterate the warning in the summary: this is NOT a happy story. There is no happy ending. It doesn't have my usual cute and random bouts of humor. This is a serious piece of writing, from one of my favorite quotes. It's a 'what if…' scenario with an unhappy result. I hope you enjoy it… but I also hope I can make you think.
Warnings for: Angst, ideologically sensitive issues, slight fudging of some history and characters, OOC-ness, real-people death, and multiple implied character death.
(Also, some of this is terribly inaccurate. Sorry, and bear with me. If you're a true history buff and don't just dabble like I do, I'd love to hear what I should have done. I'm afraid my research was more rushed than I would have liked.)
Thank you, and feel free to ask if you have any questions or need clarification.
Disclaimed
***#No One At All#***
The sound of a pen scratching at paper was and the pattering of rain on the window were the only sounds apart from the soft breathing of the room's only occupant in - seemingly - the entire world.
(And wouldn't that be fitting now.)
A tall blond man sat hunched over the graceful wooden desk, filling out form after form, signing them with no hint of flourish or satisfaction that the task was done. Merely taking from one pile, authorizing, and putting in the next.
Never reading what they contained. Never thinking of what he was doing.
(He couldn't. Too much.)
Signing death warrants was not what this had been about. Not at first.
Leaning back, he closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment's rest. It wasn't much rest at all, for the moment lids slipped closed over sky blue eyes, the darkness of memory ruled.
This was never supposed to turn out like this.
It was an ideal, after all. Aren't ideals what every person, every nation, every entity strives for? To be perfect? That was all that had been asked. 'Be as close to perfect as you may.'
It wasn't like they were the first. There was the ever-famous American Dream, wasn't there? To own a home, raise your kids, work for a living and then go back to your family to eat apple pie. To be the perfect American.
He had learned far, far too late that 'perfect' was not always 'right.'
The rain was coming down harder. It seemed like it was always raining in Berlin, these days. Perhaps it was some higher power's way of punishment. Or a warning. Whichever.
This needed to end, but he had no idea how. He was riding an avalanche, and there was nothing to stop it.
'Ideal.'
'Perfect.'
That had so quickly warped into something terrifyingly specific. So gradually and yet so suddenly became hate.
And yet, as the war started, they were in the right.
That was what his people heard. That was what they believed.
That they were strong. They were German. They had blond hair and blue eyes and were perfect. They had perfect little children, and once all the evil of the world had been dealt with by their government… they could have perfect little lives.
How had he not seen?
First they came for the communists, and I remained silent;
The blond man sits at his desk and remembers, suddenly very small despite the tiny room and his impressive height. He remembers a time when there was another. That had ended, long ago.
But still the idea of what had been was enchanting, most of all when he remembered his bruder.
Laughing red eyes and tousled white hair sprang to mind. And if he remembered further enough, a different ideal.
And he had not agreed, and he had not spoken.
And Gilbert had been taken away.
I was not a communist.
The violence and hate had spread so quickly. Such was the ideal that those who did not agree went away.
The man also remembered a house full of laughter and music, a place that would always be open for return.
He had closed one half of the door with a bullet, and a grim-faced brunette had closed the other with a grudge.
The door had burned, though, and Roderich had been taken along.
Then they locked up the social democrats, and I remained silent;
Another ideal, that was not perfect, and another 'brother' who held it.
Arguing with the communists for years had been pointless. Neither of them had been right, after all.
It was only the perfect ones who would remain.
And another one drifted off into eternity.
I was not a social democrat.
And in the meantime, oh so many had fallen.
They gained the Rhineland, and Czechoslovakia, and Holland, and Belgium, and Denmark, and Norway, and France.
And Italy, Japan, Hungary, and Romania, they all agreed, yes? That perfect was right.
And if the Soviet Union wished to take others, well. There was time later.
So even as Britain and France and Australia and New Zealand and Canada attacked, there was the certainty.
The Blitz would triumph. Because they were perfect, and the Allies were not.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out;
This time, when the problems arose, it was from the imperfections.
The sub-humans.
The Non-Aryans.
Such were not worthy, and were outlawed in their rightful place alongside the trade unions.
The government was always right.
And thousands slipped away into nothing.
I was not a trade unionist.
His allies had fought so well. It was wonderful really, that they could do so well, even if they were not perfect.
Of course, eventually that would have to change. Europe could only belong to the Aryans, the perfect ones.
Perhaps Africa could remain for the others.
Then they came for the Jews, and I remained silent;
Poland was, in theory, the worst.
On some level, he knew he should have been horrified. But this was right, and they were not worthy. It was the duty of the Reich to keep the race pure.
Necessary. All of it.
And eventually there
was no more space to move them, so a Final Solution was needed.
And found.
Feliks looked so broken, and millions more faded away.
I was not a Jew.
Imperfections were mars on the collective whole of the people. They were not to be tolerated.
Disabled. Sick. Romani. Jewish. Jehova's Witness. Slavic.
Without them, there could be perfection.
Of course, there were the gems hidden in the mud, the children who were so close to perfect, who would be perfect, if only given the perfect German family.
They could give them that.
When they came for me,
Now, sitting in a small office, every piece perfect and organized, he can realize that the ideal is not perfection and perfection is not the ideal.
And he is not perfect.
Because though he may be blond haired and blue eyed and would stand by his Führer until the end of time, he will never be perfect.
He will never be able to stand the perfect German wife and the perfect German children that come with the perfect German life.
His heart lies with another, who has brown hair and brown eyes and is not German and does not speak German and will never be German because he is Italy and he knows that this is wrong and imperfect in every way.
There is a pill on the table, a pill that was to be used only if another sought to find what he knew. And he knew everything that anyone would need to know about the future of a perfect Germany that he was not.
Ludwig joined the imperfections, and another star went out.
There was no one left to speak out.
***#Fin#***
"First they came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
Then they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
I remained silent; I wasn't a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out." – Martin Niemöller
This is one of my favorite quotations, though you may be familiar with a different version. There are several dozen common ones, and all have the same premise.
Over the course of the Holocaust, the Nazis murdered anywhere from 11 to 17 MILLION PEOPLE, approximately 6 million of whom were Jewish. They killed people with physical or mental disabilities, political prisoners, captive Soviet soldiers, anyone who spoke out against them, any member of political parties who disagreed with them, the Romani (Gypsies), the Poles, and probably many others.
I remember it as a warning. Make of this what you will, though I would love to hear your opinions.