“Thank god those dogs can’t talk” • Hermann Goering
The news of my death was greatly exaggerated. Because, as is obvious, here I am, dictating this to my master, who I know types fast and hopes to make a “killing” off my story [pun intended]. The “news” of my passing was but a pawnote in the history of the world of humans. Bottom line: dogs don’t matter unless we’re being slavishly affectionate, can do tricks, earn our keep, sniff out bombs, help guide the blind, serve as lapdog or psychiatric assistance dog. But one bark, bite and your condemned to the unheated doghouse or the back garden come rain or shine.
I had been very apprehensive about becoming Herr H.’s dog. I’d been given to Herr H. by Martin Bormann to take his mind off a host of problems. I’m a blond pedigree Alsatian bitch bred for courage, vigilance, and loyalty. Harmoniously proportioned with uniformly graceful lines and a chest of white fur that contrasted smartly with my dark coat, giving me the dignified elegance of evening wear.
But I don’t think the term “lucky dog” was invented for me. I certainly knew that 3 of his 4 previous canine companions had been pedigrees as well. And they all wound up with one-way tickets to the boneyard via the Augsburg labs where scientists were busy with such experiments as grafting dog fur to human skin, injecting mutt sperm into women’s uteruses.
And the 4th? Somehow officers in the opposition managed to tie explosives to his collar. And he was blown to smithereens near the München Hofbrauhaus, missing Herr H. by mere minutes. Tufts of fur, bright viscera and entrails rained down, draping across ornate railings like wet socks.
Dogs, as you know, are not particularly endowed with free will. But then, neither are soldiers. Oh yes, we’re “very intelligent” when we obey commands, leap into a lake, fetch a stick. But is that really intelligence? Pavlov knew better. So did Napoleon.
From time to time you will notice a dog tugging on his leash in a direction quite contrary to that of his master’s. That’s not free will. That’s enslavement to scent.
The portion of a dog’s brain devoted to the olfactory system is by far the most sprawling. And since the nose is regarded as the most primitive of the senses, the least muddled by philosophic distraction, it is often the most accurate accountant of phenomena.
Most dogs fall weak to scents. Their lives slavishly shackled to the whims of their noses. Endlessly tagging territory with their scent, a kind of “scentual graffiti,” if you will, or mentally cataloguing vintages from street corners and fireplugs just as a man might collect butterflies or vintage firearms.
You’d never catch me high on street scents or jumping crazily into human crotches to gather and analyze their mysterious acrid odors. Call it breeding. But then again, I wouldn’t have minded a quick snort on occasion, or “muff dive,” as mutts of no breeding refer to them.
Our visual horizon includes many regions forgotten and unpainted, table legs and kneecaps. Much can be learned from the kneecap. Their shape informs us about diet during adolescence. Swollen, bruised knees almost certainly means a housekeeper. Perspiration offers hints of particular diets and anxiety levels. A scented kneecap is always nice and reveals a person well attuned to life’s more sensual realms. The nose of an exemplary dog – like the eye of a hawk or scope of a rifle – becomes a sensory extension, an extrapolation of man’s incessant desire to control not only his own destiny but the destiny of others as well.
Herr H.’s odd scent was a potential portal into the fate of an entire continent. During WWI, Herr H. was blinded by mustard gas. During convalescence, sitting in petulant darkness – his blindness diagnosed as hysteria-induced – he heard far too much news of Germany’s betrayal. Circumstance managed to turn his trench visions into something far grander. Herr H. thought the return of his vision, via hypnosis, was a miracle; a miracle Herr H. felt compelled to act upon.
My nose, after some basic training, became quite capable of sniffing out explosive devices or contraband, be it packed in sardine tin or lead. This left more than a few officers, including Herr H. himself, awestruck. Here, they thought, was their überhund, my nose as symbol for Truth.
Herr H.’s annual birthday party meant me entertaining guests. Everyone drank champagne. Except Herr H., who drank tea. He directed me to perform my begging routine. Which I did to general delight. Also did my “school girl” routine and even “sang” – a kind of yodeled howl that resembled a song only because Herr H. insisted it did. The yodel, of course, fits in nicely with the core image of Aryanism – a Blond German Alsatian who can yodel – you can’t get more Aryan than that as a 4-legged beast. Herr H. liked me most when he could be proud of me.
I was the perfect embodiment of his tenderness and good sense. He rewarded me amply for my performance, feeding me morsels under the dinner table and stroking my chin for, what seemed like, days on end. This kind of caressing knew no border nor ism. Pleasure knows no affiliation. Heaven is not a political entity. I’d do most anything for his caresses. And Herr H. knew that better than anyone.
Most of my “nose scanning” performances, the infamous ferreting out of “Joden Vermin” based on “typical” Jewish odors (using blood, hair, saliva, gefilte fish samples), were reserved mainly for photo ops. Here I looked ever the canine symbol of the Reich, emblem of rectitude and racial superiority. Leni Riefenstahl filmed me, fussed with my fur, posed me on hills with magnificent backdrop sunsets. I looked quite noble and mythic.
But I never engaged in the infamous canine attack tests. Dogs, like the one named “Mensch”, had been trained to leap, upon the command of “MENSCH! GRAB A DOG!,” and gnarl off the genitalia of naked, cowering men, the breasts of women prisoners, and the facial features of the defiant. The amount of time it took victims to bleed to death was duly noted by Reich eugenicists.
I knew that the sight of blood was always too much for Herr H. He was an intellectual and death was his calculus. He never reveled in the spectacle of execution; a bit squeamish, a delicate constitution. I know. Whenever he was around, my meals got overcooked so there was never a hint of bloody raw meat. For these bloody testimonies might easily have unhinged his rhetoric, all the bravado of the Big Lie, a lie so large and all encompassing that its sheer audacity and magnitude of conception would lead to mass confusion. It maintained a hypnotic quality that would allow the Big Lie to be mistaken for fundamental truth — be it Biblical or biological.
The whole notion of sniffing out the enemy was, of course, totally preposterous. It just can’t be done. Each individual has his/her own unique blood, sweat – specific olfactory print. Nothing racial about it.
But I gave the whole charade a go because my purpose was to serve, not question. And in no time I had gained the trust of the innermost circles of the SS. But I was a fake with a Pinocchio shnoz! But ironcially I often had the final word. My snout became Truth on 4 legs. No passport, no official letter stood in the way of my nose. Thus, ironically, I managed to condemn some “real” Nazis – and, on the other hand, save the lives of some Jews because fear is fear and I could actually smell fear. Instead of no chance, Jews basically had a 50-50 chance with me.
Otherwise, I did not suffer from ticks, ringworm, halitosis or mange. I did not howl or whine like muttmate “Wulf.” I was obedient, graceful, athletic. Smart – if obedience marked intelligence. Herr H. often showed me off at the Berghof obstacle course. I darted in and out of mazes, jumped barrels, through hoops. Leaps of 2 meters over a wooden wall. Routine. And at the end of my Olympian rounds I was made to beg Herr H. for my yummy doggie treats. Which I snatched mid-air time and time again.
Henry Ford, mutual admirer of Herr H. [Herr H. had portraits of both Frederick The Great and Henry Ford, while Ford had a framed photo of Herr H. on his desk. Herr H. admired not only Ford’s assemblyline innovations but the way his private army of goons and capos was so effective against labor agitators and Bolsheviks. Ford was so impressed he wanted to use me in his automobile ads. “Audiences like dogs” I heard him say over tea on the veranda with Herr H.
And who were all these guests? I did not care. I remembered them mostly by their scents and the treats they bore. And I learned to flatter them with my affections and I did not care that this was their way of trying to butter up Herr H. Some of them were just curious to meet the man the German people had come to call their supernatural Christ. “Hitler is victory itself,” I heard some loyalist declare. Many more came to do business, wearing nice suits like the ones you see in Esquire. Some had big vocabularies, others big wallets. Still others smelled a little too good to trust.
The American visitors were chummy, garrulous, informal. They usually smelled very fresh. Like men without history. Their aftershaves meant not to heighten or accent who it was they were. Instead, it was assigned to mask the notion of what it was they were afraid they weren’t.
Americans love dogs. Not the ornamental chachka lap dogs Parisians are so fond of. Or Braun’s 2 black Scotch Terriers, Stasi and Negus, who were nothing more than “scampering handsweepers,” to Herr H. I really resented these mutts because anytime they entered into our midst, I’d be banished to the lonely corridor or outside rain or shine because Braun had Herr H. pussy-whipped as I heard staff say in hushed tones. And I soon understood why the other wives and most of the staff despised Braun.
Anyway, I was a real dog. I fetched, leapt, hunted, rolled over. And since real men love real dogs the Americans loved me. One well-connected Englishman in particular, used to visit with little wax sacks of lamb kidney. MMMmm. And boot polish, that great English kind, for Herr H., compliments of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, 2 great admirers of Herr H.
I was privy to top secret meetings, laid out under the table, positioned so that Herr H. could stroke me to calm his nerves and temporarily take the edge off his tantrums. I was more than companion. I was therapy.
I loved the rich scent of the polish. Rich enough to trigger sweet reveries under the table and olfactory leaps into former lives.
One chubby American ITT rep always wore a fruity cologne that was not particularly becoming to anyone who wasn’t a fruit fly. He brought boxes of YumYums, special bonbons for dogs which made me drool. I’d perhaps have killed for them. And we dogs are easily made to be fanatical and loyal. And thus we become easy spiritual prostheses for the esteem-deprived.
This chunky cherub represented a consortium of banks and firms – Ford, GM, Dupont, Standard Oil, RCA and the Chase and Morgan banks – who were interested in financing Herr H. “Business is like a penis; it knows no conscience,” I’d heard him chortle. The consortium had been very impressed by how Herr H. had handled wildcat strikes and economic crises. And dispensed with both Socialists and Communists. He came offering materiel, a tele-communications system nonpareil — phones, intercoms, new compact mimeograph machines – and, of course, military hardware. In exchange, these companies (their tankers and overseas HQs) were to receive safe haven from the ravages of war. Their investments protected for the mutual benefit of all.
All this rather bored me. But I knew humans got all worked up over this kind of thing. And I let them. I preferred more sublime preoccupations. Example: although dressed to the hilt, this ITT man farted like crazy. To me a fart is a fart – except Herr H.’s. But also something else — a rich bouquet. An olfactory print revealing dining habits, in his case, a pre-occupation with aphrodisiacs — oysters, ginger, cognac, chocolate-covered strawberries — as well as hints of A-level anxiety. All from farts!
He’d once made light of his gregarious flatulence by joking “when people fart they are all equal.” To which Herr H., a troubled flatulator himself, responded, “But some are more equal than others.” and in amongst the uproarious laughter a deal was struck. The “fat flatulator” was, it turns out, a letch with a weakness for women and drink. Herr H. gained industrial assistance and numerous perquisites for the Reich by offering concubines chosen from the Joy Division, a unique concentration camp branch employed to accommodate the amorous demands of the Reich and their guests. “Jew-cy Conc-Jew-bines!” The ITT man was heard to bellow ingratiatingly.
During the day I played with Himmler’s daughter, Gudrun. She knew nothing of history and business. She liked to dance, often taking up my forepaws to do our special jitterbug. I loved her flapping pigtails, pleated skirts, girly smells, clean white socks on which I’d tug to tease her. I was versatile. Tough but tender.
I remember the stiff cut of Herr H.’s uniform, the kind of sartorial precision that beckoned images of control and probity. This illusion of prowess was already so ironically betrayed by the ever encroaching realities that it rendered Herr H. pitiable to all but the most faithful. His right arm was, by now, almost totally devoid of function, his erectile dysfunction was an open secret. He received regular injections of bovine testosterone in attempts to boost his sexual prowess. Meanwhile, Braun suppressed her periods – the nose knows – in an attempt to make things happen.
Yet, on the day Greta Garbo came to visit, his uniform or him in it, with a colorful rearrangement of medals, an upturned collar, looked quite dashing. A smart Napoleonic curl sat on his forehead like a serpent’s tail. He looked rakish, mischievous even — like a boy. Although devoted to Herr H., his generous affections and geography of intriguing odors, I had much difficulty imagining him as a child full of snot and glee. Anyway, there was, indeed, more to life than just order and discipline.
When Garbo, glam-eyed, sultry Salomé, arrived (She’d already been there in Herr H.’s schemes and blood throbbing reveries for days.) she was not required to submit to the usual intense search of person. Her person was some ultra-entity beyond mere mortal suspicion. Nor did I get to sniff-search her. You just don’t with a goddess. Simple as that.
He was so polite, charming, bashful, giddy – not himself. He even managed to make his right arm come alive long enough to take her hand and kiss it.
He offered her tea (as neither drank), apple cake, chocolate. He showed her huge sprawling maps with bold sweeping arrows. Grand adventures skirting the fabled Maginot Line. How Czechoslovakia was his little puzzle piece. She sipped her tea. Hid behind the cup, decidedly disinterested in his maps. His hand thrusts into deep misunderstood territory. She asked nothing of Herr H. She spoke only when spoken to, did not smile and her eyes remained intense as a blue flame.
When I licked her hand she responded appropriately by stroking my ears, petting my hindquarters — which is certainly a top 5 G-spot. But ultimately she stroked me hesitantly, perfunctorily as if preoccupied. It just never got beyond mutual respect. She smelled great though. Great is not the word. Not loud or ostentatious. Simply a scent primed to accent the confidence, further cultivate the mystique that oozed from her pores. Images of North Africa, balsam, myrrh, an autumn forest bed, a bed of pine needles and silk and fur, the velvet curtain at the opera. Like her scent, she was impossible to pin down.
It was only some time after the war, that I heard she had had good reason for her hesitancy. She’d been packing. Packing a cheap pearl-handled single shot pistol (only good at short range but perfect for concealing in stocking tops). She had intended to shoot Herr H., my provider – shocking! Gertrude Traubl, Herr H.’s young and prettiest secretary yet, was absolutely devastated by the deception. She could not imagine why anyone would want to harm Herr H. Neither could I. The apparent scheme: Garbo would offer Herr H. “a very intimate gift.” She’d reach under her dress as if to offer him her garter. Instead, in the stocking top, sat the tiny pistol. But somehow the occasion never arose. (I like to think it was my presence.)
But even me, to tell you the truth, with my vaunted nose, just had no idea! But what do you want? I was off duty. And I may have a great nose but that doesn’t mean I have X-ray vision. I can’t read minds, you know.
July 16, 1944: Me listening outside his bedroom door, medical staff disccussing Herr H. who apparently suffered from a condition called hypospadias – a condition where the opening of the urethra is located on the underside of the penis. They also discussed his undescended testicle, confirming the scandalous rumors heard in the song “Hitler Has Only Got One Ball.” But, perhaps most importantly, when discussing his emerging sociopathy, was that he possessed an abnormally small manhood, called a micropenis. Did this deformity, this body shame, sufficiently explain his ideological take on a global realpolitik rooted in vengeful authoritarianism? Honestly, I’m not the one to ask.
August 19: At a dinner with men in uniform and their wives, Herr H. wanted to show off some of my tricks. But when my leap over the hedge failed this one time, he berated me in front of the ladies, who giggled as if he was a charming master of ceremonies. Followed by a few whacks with the baton to my backside to impress them with a display of discipline. “You’re a traitor like all the rest of my staff, Blondi. Disappointment is so unnecessary, don’t you think?”
September 22: “That mutt is the only living creature,” Albert Speer at dinner, jealous remarked to the other guests, “who can arouse a hint of menschlicher Zärtlichkeit [human tenderness] in him.”
October 1: Dr. Giesing discovered Herr H. empty-eyed, yellowish skin, on his Spartan bed. Herr H. dismissed Giesing’s diagnosis of eardrum puncture and possible inner ear damage. Giesing suggested pain is deforming some of Herr H.’s critical acumen, but complained of headaches and intestinal pain. Giesing’s prognosis: “hi-strychnine-toxicity from excessive intake of little black anti-gas pills.” Complete physical revealed jaundice. Herr H. requested “more of that cocaine stuff.” Giesing, in talking to Herr H., discovered the horrific “intellectual inadequacy and petty subjectiveness” informing Herr H.’s Master Plan. Disgusted, Giesing decided to murder Herr H. with a double dose of cocaine rubbed into the interior of his nostrils. But his plan was aborted when valet, Heinz Linge, barged into bedroom unexpectedly.
January 17, 1945: By now Herr H. and Family – and me – are living in decidedly less splendid quarters in and under the Reich’s Chancellery, 2 meters down, behind 11 reassuring feet of concrete. Windows covered with cardboard. Corridors flooded and offices devoid of paintings, tapestries, carpet. Herr H. is progressively more absent-minded, which is to my advantage because now I got fed 4 times a day!
February 15: I nuzzled up under Eva’s skirt into her crotch, she pulled hard on my ear and kicked me over and over under the table with her fave 2-tone pumps. She was jealous because I got to sleep in his bed, or was it just her generally prickly, spiteful nature? Pretty much everyone in the bunker liked me more than Braun. Reichschancellery Nurse Erna Flegel affectionately called me “almost human” – more later!
A week later she kicked me for chewing on a plastic weiner, a Strapon-Dildo, made of a rubber of a special manufacture, express delivered to Braun. But she never needed a reason to kick me
Anyway, the kicking was pretty much a daily occurence like whenever she thought no one was looking. And if I let out so much as a half-yodel I’d get an extra boot and Herr H.’s disappointed glare as if my outburst was about to ruin his international PR strategy to humanize him as a tender baby-and-dog-loving world leader.
February 20: Hitler’s elite guests caught hell from Herr H. for petting me, or “arousing any feeling of companionship” with me – instead of HIM. Albert Speer instructed others to “pet Blondi but then quickly praise Herr H. for his unforgettable bond with his mate.” His displeasure could instantly lead to a conniption fit and forever banishment.
March 1: 3 flights under the Chancellery lies the Family bunker, reached by traversing duck boards across a meter wide channel to the first floor. Another long soggy-carpeted stairway curved down to the 2nd floor consisting of 12 rooms and general messhall, to the Führer bunker, 50 feet below, consisting of 18 cubicles – the low 2-meter ceilings made everyone appear bigger or other than who they were – separated by a hall, conference and waitingrooms. To the left of the conference room was the maproom and the 6-room Herr H. and Braun suite.
March 8: Linge parked the Volkswagen along a hilly road, where Herr H. rubbed cocaine along his gums and the lining of his nostrils. Here he dreamed of his secret weapon — the atom bomb.
March 16: Sunshine crashed through the remaining Chancellery windows while Herr H. paced nervously, listening to a phonograph playing “Gotterdamerung.” He spent hours staring at the Frederick The Great portrait, left hand trembling noticeably. Right arm stiff as a stick. Braun spent the day fidgeting with her hair, trying on clothes in front of the mirror. She wrapped her naked body in a silver fox fur coat. Imagined the glamour of the Reich was Hollywood. Herr H.’s trembling hand stroked me absentmindedly. Face pale. Voice weak and hoarse. No more frolicking.
March 27: I feel abandoned, banished to the garden outdoors to follow longings and instincts. I never knew that banishment and freedom were so much alike. In some ways this was good.
April 6: Braun gave herself a manicure and pedicure, wearing open-toed shoes to dinner to show off her red-tipped toes. Few noticed. I did. But I was not about to fawn over the toes of an adversary. Herr H. threw a few tantrums. But about what? Everyone’s confused. Embarrassed. For all of Germany? Hmm.
April 20: Last photo of Herr H. revealed a man, a sooty shadow, drained, featureless, being sucked into the quicksand of nonexistence.
April 22: Berlin almost totally surrounded now. “The war is lost,” Herr H. in a trembling voice declared. His eyes blank, Braun taking his hand in hers, smiling like a mother might at her frightened son, saying “I shall stay with you.” His eyes sparkled ever so slightly as he reached up to kiss her on the lips. The guests shocked by the realization that their celibate Christ and Braun had been living out of wedlock!
April 23: Braun has quit humming her boring ditties. Her cheerfulness has evaporated. In a resigned voice declaring: “It’s all enough to lose one’s faith in God.” She composed a letter to her sister Instructing her to bury Herr H.’s letters in a watertight chest in her backyard. Braun’s mind so muddled she had to speak aloud to hear herself think. Corpses of former humans litter the streets. I know no amount of licking their faces could bring them back. Many are run over, pressed further into the mud by various retreating vehicles.
April 24: Himmler tried convincing the Allies to join forces and fight the Russians together. Some Berliners claim they saw Herr H., saber drawn, lit hackle atop his shiny helmet, slaying the foe, fighting the noble battle to the last. Herr H.’s personal adjutant, burned sensitive communiques. Braun refused to get out of bed for lunch. Spent the day examining blemishes and rummaging through her wardrobe. Young Werewolves, Nazi youth partisans, prowled the Berlin streets for traitors to shoot or hang from lampposts with bold signs hung around their necks declaring their “crimes.”
April 25: Berghof partly demolished by Allied bombs. Blasted tin roof flutters noisily in a breeze as eerie twisted testimony to a likely demise. Herr H. detailed a dream of having the Army hold out until May 5 to effectively “enlarge the misery of the desperately loyal” so that he can die on the same day Napoleon died. Did I hear someone in a whisper call Herr H. a “self-absorbed narcissist?”
April 26: Herr H.’s arms were twitching nonstop now, raving, weeping inconsolably as his noble destiny shriveled to nothing more than that of a miserable loser with painful hemmorhoids, constipation and uncontrollable flatulence. Eyes glassy like the windows of an abandoned building. Felt betrayed by one and all – even me. Braun altered a formal dress to make it more modern. Herr H. pinned the Iron Cross on a young boy in shorts for blowing up an advancing Russian tank. As the young boy turned to leave he collapsed from exhaustion. I licked the boy’s legs but my magic was no longer magical.
April 27: News of Mussolini and his mistress being gunned down by partisans near Dongo reached the Bunker. Herr H. was determined he’d not be taken alive “to be put in some Russian cage and I will gladly take all of you with me.” Bent over me — bloated face covered in red splotches — he chided me; “Look me in the eye Blondi, have you betrayed me like my generals?” Not sure what to do. I lick his lifeless hand but to no avail. Herr H. suddenly wondering if the ceiling will hold. If the sky will hold. In reprisal for Himmler’s betrayal, he has Himmler’s liaison officer, Fegelein, executed at the bunker entrance. He cannot bare to watch but felt better knowing it had been carried out. I had lost him. A dog without a bone, a dog without a stick to fetch. Oh, how I yearned for a leash that would tug me this way or that. Women on the street fight over hunks of rancid butter.
April 28: “A world without Herr H.,” Magda Goebbels declared, “will not be worth living in.” Herr H. ordered women, even young girls to the front lines. Goebbels was shouting “Pure Hysteria!” over and over in the Bunker. The ventilators sucked in brown dusty hot air, dense with the acrid spice of spent explosives. Herr H. brooding, head in hands, in the sanctity of maproom, pushed around nonexistent armies on a map of a world that no longer existed. Braun emerged from her bedroom, wearing a black silk taffeta gown for the wedding. Everyone surprised. Herr H. looked painfully awkward like a splintering toy soldier in uniform. Berlin was bright, not with jubilation but with buildings ablaze. In those fires Botticelli’s “Madonna and Angels,” Van Dyck’s “Diana Surprised By Saturn,” Goya’s “The Monk,” and hundreds are burnt to a crisp.
April 29: The Family unsure about the propriety of Braun’s diamond-studded watch. To everyone’s surprise she offered her prized fox fur to her adversary, private secretary Gertrude Traudl, quipping: “I always like to have well-dressed people around me.”
At midnight, Herr H. told an old joke; everyone laughed. He has 2 sips of a sweet wine from his hometown of Braunau, a souvenir from a more promising time with everyone pretending to love it. The phonograph played “Red Roses.” The Family giddy, drunk on gallows humor. There’s furious smoking and Schnapps and spirits spilled down chins and dress fronts. Prussian generals cast off their tunics and danced wildly with stenographers. One major tore down a huge velvet curtain and draped it around his midsection, transforming himself into a campy countess. Herr H. ceremoniously handed out capsules of cyanide to all except loyal valet Linge (11 years of impeccable service). He apologized for not having nicer “going-away presents.” Was that a gurgling giggle I heard emerge from Braun’s lips? “It’s so simple,” Braun declared. “You just bite into this,” showing the capsule in the pinch of her well-groomed fingers, “and poof! It’s all glory thereafter.”
Goebbels wondered if the cyanide was still effective. Herr H. noted that they’d been a gift from Himmler, someone he no longer trusted. Dr. Werner Hasse suggested one be tried on me! Herr H. agreed! Shock! Hasse forced the capsule into my mouth with a pair of tongs, then cracked the capsule. Although I collapsed I did not die. In the final act of my admirably faked death I overheard Braun say something about being glad to see me “perish for the greater good.” I’m left behind to be buried by staff. My dying scene was definitely worthy of Shakespeare – award-winning AND life saving.
Russians infiltrated the Berlin Zoo. Herr H. ate a lunch of grey, vegetable gruel with his 2 secretaries and cook. He tried to disguise the lameness of his arms, his stooped back and the morphological fact that he had become the crumbling embodiment of his own Reich – the despair of death in the guise of composure. Herr H. gave orders regarding the disposal of the Family corpses. “Where’s the woolen blankets?! We need 20!” Herr H. shouted.
Braun emerged from nowhere in her favorite black dress, sashaying mock Hollywood style. “You’ll be a most beautiful corpse,” Herr H. observed, “but glorious devastation is what I want to illuminate my finish.” He then demanded 200 liters of gasoline. His adjutants informed him that 200 liters just can’t be found. Herr H. fumed; “Then siphon it from wrecked vehicles if necessary. Because I do not want to end up exhibited in a Russian Wax Museum!”
April 30: Herr H. has finally decided the moment has arrived; he emerged from the side-bedroom, shook everyone’s hand, bid farewell with glazed, faraway eyes. Individually shook Flegel’s hand, mumbled a few nice words. “And that was it.”
He then commanded canine caretaker, Fritz Tornow, to execute my pups – yes, I had had pups, no comment! – along with the rest of the dogs in the garden before my very eyes. Tornow was also ordered to put me down. With cyanide, a gun? But did he?
No, because I’m hidden in a closet. And Flegel has argued that eliminating me doesn’t make any sense. I can’t spill any beans anyway. Folly informing outrage, outrage informed insanity. Tornow shook his head meekly “yes.” Thank you!
News filtered in: The bodies of Mussolini and his mistress have been strung up by their feet in a Milan gas station lot. Citizens were invited to kick them in the head. Meanwhile, boisterous dancing broke out in adjacent rooms. Bormann pleading for calm. Fat greasy smoke envelopedBerlin. Extra tobacco rations issued to placate citizens.
Flegel also tried persuading Magda to spare her six children. Magda just shouted: “The children belong to me to do with what I want” and eventually fed them the cyanide capsules anyway.
Linge held open the door to the cramped quarters. After Braun was gone, Herr H. turned to Linge saying: “You must live for the sake of my successor.” Linge is stunned.
Herr H. joined Braun on the couch. She gazed at Herr H. He gripped her knee as she cracked the capsule of potassium cyanide between her teeth. In minutes she was dead. The brass hull of the capsule fell to carpeted floor. She slumped away from Herr H. (so his death could be the glorious centerpiece?) over the chair arm, lips closed tight, nostrils discolored by cyanide.
3:36 pm: He stroked his dead wife’s hair, picked up his old 7.65 caliber Walther he had carried since his Beerhall Putsch days to protect himself from Bolsheviks and garner attention in crowds. He fondled the finely-crafted handle, staring at the framed photo of his mother as a young woman. Placed the barrel to his right temple and pulled the trigger. His body pitched forward, into the right corner, down across the coffee table, left arm knocking over a pitcher of water, some of which soaked into Braun’s black dress. The bang rang in my ears for days afterward.
I emerged cautiously from the closet. Sit by my master’s side. This man who had fed me so well. Even in these last difficult days. I licked his hand and noticed a gaping exit wound in his right temple oozing dura and brain matter. A small puddle of thick dark blood gathered on the carpet. And here was I, dumb dog, trying to lick Herr H. awake, unable to comprehend the philosophic or historical magnitude of his death — or ANY death, for that matter.
It’s much simpler for me. His scent had grown so familiar and even in death he smelled like the Herr H. of old. Plus, I liked blood. I am, after all, first cousin to the wild canis lupus, an animal susceptible to ancient instincts.
When Bormann and Linge burst into the suite they’re totally spooked. Unsure of what their eyes are seeing. Me, Blondi, supposedly dead Blondi, still alive, licking the bullethole clean. At first I didn’t budge. But Goebbels’ voice ws filled with the kind of anger that usually emerges from the maw of panic.
They carried Herr H. out, wrapped in a grey Army blanket. I watched from the Bunker entranceway as Russian artillery sent dust and rubble from the crumbling Chancellery walls raining over us. Red hot embers arced across my view like shooting stars.
They laid him and Braun down in a trench 10 meters from the Bunker entrance. Adjutant Kempke adjusted Herr H.’s trousers, then laid Braun down to his left. Kempke fixed her hair as if preparing her for a photo shoot. He moved Herr H.’s arm to his side for a more dignified pose. Debris continued to rain down over us. They poured cans of gasoline over their bodies. Kempke lit a rag and tossed it onto the bodies. Ball of flame so intense it warmed my snout. They stood mesmerized, speechless. Braun’s dentures melted out of her grimace.
That night they scraped the charred remains into a canvas sack with the cardboard that had covered a Chancellery window. Dropped the burial shroud of the newlyweds into a shellhole, covered the hole with dirt and rubble, jumping on it to pound it down. And not long thereafter Berlin surrendered.
May 1: 1 AM, Magda, ignoring Flegel’s plea, drugged her 6 children with spirits then placed crushed ampoules of potassium cyanide in their mouths as if performing communion.
I sat on the burial site of Herr H., watched an SS officer shoot the Goebbels in the garden at dawn. The officer stared at his own hand attached to the gun and the gun to death and death to fate. They quickly doused the Goebbels with gasoline, lit the pyre, then torched the Bunker. Remaining uncaptured ragtag members of the Family were seen fleeing. Traudl in silver fox and several officers in formal evening wear.
Undeterred, I remained behind on the tamped earth where underneath lay Herr H. until Russian troops arrived. I watch a young soldier of 16 take aim at me. I see the squint eye through the aimsight just as he sees me – face to snout. They want to shoot me. I don’t blame them. Me with mouth caked in dried blood, looking dazed, rabid, as if guarding some secret Nazi underground haunt.
If you had been with members of SMERSH, the special Soviet counter-intelligence agency tasked with salvaging the charred remains of Herr H. and other Family members you would have noticed what they did. They saw something suddenly coming over me, I don’t know what. My ears went soft. Proud shoulders in a slouch.
A keen-eyed SMERSH member suddenly yelled: “NE DVIGAYSYA!” [Don’t move!]. He noticed my distinctive Urhunde features including classic paintbrush tail, which was wagging in true Academy-Award-style. In fact, it’s as if my tail was wagging my entire hindquarters, as if my very life depended on it. And it probably did.
SMERSH members had been well-briefed and had seen the propaganda film of Herr H. petting me on the snow covered Berghof terrace, 1940. They noticed my distinctive blond pedigree Alsatian hide, with dark details on my back, perfect symmetrical, pointed ears, luxurious scruff, and very clear, deep eyes signaling extraordinary intelligence.
The young soldier with the aimsight in his eye suddenly loosened up, went soft, squatted down, rifle in the dust, and lured me over.
He had the petting gift, knew immediately what I liked, even offered a tin of pork paté. I licked the tin, his hands and the hands of his friends as a sign of submission – and my craving for salt. In no time, I became their mascot. An indispensable tool of the Allies with a keen nose for Nazis. Which really meant I knew where many of them were hiding. Which, once again, lent credence to the supposed power of my mythic nose. Of course, I was cheating.
In the days that followed I helped root out many Nazis, including a few Bunker Family members. I recognized them as they were marched — hande hoche! — along the rubble-covered streets. And they undoubtedly recognized me. Burning houses lit up the rubble-filled streets. Perhaps some of them became enlightened at the moment they recognized me, me being petted by my new friends. We witness a woman with 2 shopping bags full of bricks tied to her wrists, holding a baby under each arm as she leaped into the Havel River. Meanwhile, countless dead Herr H.’s were being discovered daily.
I heard the abrupt burp of machine gun fire – the clean pop-pop-pop and then the captives were no longer among the living. Dead with their several minutes of enlightenment — that short span of time between when they’d spotted me and realized I was unaligned, loyal only to my next meal as the lead entered their chests.
I smelled the wall, the wall against which their shoulder blades had rested, that odd sulphurous smell of when bullets hit brick and cement.
So, yes, Nurse Flegel had liked me and that ultimately saved me.
–bart plantenga
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