The Lamb and the Fuhrer: Jesus Talks with Hitler (Hardback)

Chapter One

Erik: Yes. Until one comes here and sees that nothing remains, you don't realize that the destruction was so thorough. Everything was razed. I mean, the Russians were within half a mile when he decided to end it all. Bombs, shelling, shooting, memos ... "the end is coming" ... "they are here." In one sense it's too bad, really. When you go to England, you can see Churchill's cabinet war rooms left almost exactly the way they were when the war ended.

Daniel: But here in Berlin, all is stones and dirt.

Erik: Even though it was his last stand, I'm afraid there is very little of the Reich's physical presence that remains. But there is something that somehow was spared. When we're finished here, let's drive to that most cultured of all German cities, Nuremberg. It's a little over two hundred miles from here, which won't take long on the autobahn. The Hall of Justice still stands intact and functions as a courthouse. But here in Berlin, you just have to step back for a moment and try to picture it as it was. See this "hall of shame" we're walking past? This is where the Gestapo headquarters was. Can you imagine the fear and terror that haunted these halls? And the so-called "People's Court" that was neither for the people nor really a court. It was a gathering of robed and uniformed people with the power to kill without feeling. It is rightly called the "Topography of Terror." A memorial site is planned here in the future. But let's move on to Nuremberg.

Daniel: Boy! You guys don't have any speed limits here, do you? That fellow who just streaked past was a blur!

Erik: Ja! We don't like driving in America. It's like putting your car in reverse. I mean, why do you design a car to do such speeds and then just crawl along at fifty-five or sixty miles an hour? It's like going backwards in time.

Daniel: I know, Erik, but as my dad used to say-the faster you move, the farther ahead you should be able to see.

Erik: I've driven with your dad. He didn't have to see very far, did he?

Daniel: No, but I don't think he expects to see the Autobahns in heaven, either. And while you're in the mood to hit us Americans, can we stop for lunch, please? And not another Wiener schnitzel! A good old MacDonald's would be very welcome.

Erik: You can take the boy out of-

Daniel: Okay, okay. Some more breaded veal down the hatch. I guess when the Russians arrived, there wasn't much choice between the cuisines, was there?

Erik: Enough out of you. Here we are. This is Nuremberg. Did you see the movies about the trial?

Daniel: I saw Judgment at Nuremberg, which was about the judges who supported the Nazi regime being placed on trial. The closing statement of the chief justice is worth sitting through every minute of that three-hour movie for.

Erik: Yes, and Nuremberg, which is powerful and quite accurate, was about the trial of the leaders of the Nazi party-or what was left of them. People often get the two movies mixed up.

Daniel: I'd like to see them again when I get back home. But I tell you what, I sure lost track of all the suicides. Every way you turned, somebody was taking his life!

Erik: It went with the obsession with power. Don't give the enemy the privilege of humiliating you. I wonder if we can park here and get into the courtroom? You go on. You have that tourist's look that just might incline them to let you in. Just shrug if the doorman asks you what you want. But whatever you do, don't clown around with that Nazi salute or you'll be the guest of the state, and then I'll say I don't know you.

Daniel: You just took the lighter side out of it.

Erik: There is no lighter side here. Germans are a people of laws and rules. You go on, and I'll find a parking spot.

Daniel: Where have you been? I have something to show you! Hurry! Hurry before someone stops us!

Erik: I couldn't park just anywhere, you know. The man in the uniform- Daniel: Forget the man in the uniform. Come on, follow me! Quick!

Erik: I can't believe we're in this building.

Daniel: You haven't seen anything yet ... Erik, we can look at those pictures later ... Yes, I know they're of the trial here after the war. Just come on.

Erik: Do you ever wish you could just plug in to one of the walls and listen to the voices of the past?

Daniel: Sometimes I wish, yes, and at other times I- Go on in, there's nobody in there.

Erik: I don't believe it! This is it ... this is the very room! Wow! Do you think we're allowed in here?

Daniel: Yes, the clerk at the door said it was okay. Let's not ask again or one of your "uniformed men in the land of laws" might decide otherwise.

Erik: What silence haunts this room, Daniel. But there was a day when the screams of the murdered were heard in here through the voices of-I'm still not sure we're supposed to be here without somebody in authority.

Daniel: Let's sit down, Erik. I must admit I never expected to get in here. Let's just pretend we're here by authority.

Erik: I don't like that word, pretend. Isn't that the way it all got started and ended? The whole thing was a charade-the pomp, the ceremony, the goose-stepping, the salute-but the incredible cost was very real.

Daniel: It's hard to put it all together. That one man could have such power to sway and destroy. I lost my relatives, you know- my uncle and my grandmother.

Erik: So did I. Let's just get our hearts to slow down a bit. I don't want to lose the moment. There are quite a few symbols and artwork here. Do you see what's above the door we entered? That is so fascinating!

Daniel: It's the serpent tempting Eve in the Garden, from the Book of Genesis.

Erik: Most visitors would wonder what that has to do with a courtroom.

Daniel: It has everything to do with it. Just everything. What an amazing reminder! Yes, the tempter told Adam and Eve that if they ate of a certain fruit they would be as God, discerning good and evil.

Erik: Talk about a chilling appropriateness. You know, I belong to the church, but for a long time I knew very little about the Bible. The state church here just takes true spirituality out of us. Still, there were some ministers who did try to stand in Hitler's way and even to assassinate him. Every German knows the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Hitler finally executed him in Flossenberg.

Daniel: Now that's another thing, isn't it? Church and state ... Hey, look high above the judge's chair. Those look like the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments etched on them.

Erik: That's odd, though. It looks to me like there are only three commandments on the first tablet and seven on the second. Is that the way it's normally written?

Daniel: I may be wrong, but I think it's because the first three deal with our relationship to God and the last seven with our relationship to our fellow human beings. Without the first, there is no explaining the other. You talk about a land of laws! That's the law that stands supreme, above all other law. Isn't that what the prosecutor thundered when each defendant kept saying they were just following the law of their land?

Erik: I can hear it. "Gentlemen, is there not a law above our laws?" How profound, to have these in a courtroom in this way-the fall of humankind and the law that should govern our lives. That alone would make for a very interesting and profound discussion.

Daniel: Where's the building where the Nazi war criminals were held and executed? Wasn't it attached to the courthouse?

Erik: Yes, it's right behind us. It's connected to this building by an underground tunnel, and it's still used to house prisoners. They never quite see the bright sunshine once they come in.

Daniel: The scene in the movie of the executions was very sobering. One-by-one they had the rope placed around their necks, and then the floor just gave way from under them.

Erik: Literally and metaphorically. They had no ground to stand on, just the weight of their egos and their undisguised evil.

Daniel: I wonder what it would be like if Hitler were on trial in this courtroom and God were the judge?

Erik: Hitler wouldn't answer to anybody, not even to God. He didn't dialogue. His was a monologue. Dialogue involves reason, it requires a willingness to admit there's another opinion. To him, there was no other viewpoint but his.

Daniel: But that's because he tried to create his own reality. When he faced God, only God's reality would survive; all the sham and artificiality would collapse. Before God, Hitler is no different from the rest of us. Like a mask removed, our soul is laid bare when we stand before Him.

Erik: That would be quite a scene, wouldn't it? Hitler in the dock, Jesus the judge, Bonhoeffer the witness, the voices of the blood of millions crying out. I'd like to be able to witness that. Talk about the trial of the century. That would be the mother of all trials, if you ask me.

Daniel: The Lamb and the Führer ... the ultimate reversal of metaphors on the way to finding the ultimate power.

Erik: You know, I had a friend who once said that if Hitler had asked Jesus for forgiveness at the end, all would have been forgiven. I find that-

Daniel: I've often thought of that, too. What would've happened if Hitler had fallen on his face and ... that would be bizarre! What do you think Jesus would've said? I mean-

Erik: We don't have to go far to imagine someone asking for forgiveness. Did you ever read The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal? It's the true story of a Nazi officer begging Wiesenthal, a prisoner in a concentration camp, for forgiveness, and Wiesenthal just walks away, unable to grant the officer's plea. One wonders whether anyone could be so audacious as to grant forgiveness to someone like that.

Daniel: God can.

Erik: I could even write out a script for this. My friends and I used to talk about this. I was sort of the ringleader, asked to fill in the missing content in our imaginary scenarios.

Daniel: Well go ahead, then. I'm listening.

Erik: Okay, here goes. No, no, before I do that I would love to just think of his last hours in the bunker. From the network of underground rooms that enabled him to hide in secrecy to an open courtroom where nothing is hidden. From the bunker in Berlin to a judgment scene. Doesn't the Bible say it is appointed to man once to die and after that the judgment? A man who thought himself to be God, with a single, self-inflicted gunshot suddenly finds himself face-to-face with the real God, and every answer he gives to the questions he is asked must withstand the scrutiny of truth. I wonder if he even thought for a moment that he was headed straight to stand before God?

Daniel: Are you kidding? Remember what happened in that bunker in his final hours?

Erik: Well, the war was grinding the German machine to powder. The Allies were scoring one victory after another. Then the Soviet offensive began on January 16, 1945. Hitler gave his last speech on January 30, twelve years after his appointment as chancellor.

Daniel: He was trying to get back to the chancellery, wasn't he?

Erik: Yes, but it was already severely damaged by bombing, and the bunker was beneath the garden next to the chancellery.

Daniel: You know, my father used to say that Hitler's bunker was bigger than the homes of some world figures.

Erik: Yes, it was a network of rooms, you know, not some little hideaway. It had a large entry hall, a spiral staircase and all that. Plus, twelve rooms for his close confidants, rooms for orderlies, a doctor's office, a kitchen, and his own private quarters. He was moving between fits of rage and depression, in and out.

Daniel: One wonders if it was fear or confusion.

Erik: He was going for broke, digging deep into his persuasive powers. What else could he do? He called a handful of his aides together before heading to the bunker ...

Hitler's secretary (reading memo from Albert Speer): "The war is lost, Herr Führer. We are being routed on every front. Thousands of young Germans are dying. Time is against us. We have no resources left to-"

Hitler: Stop! Don't bring me such messages of doom! From total defeat springs the seed of the new. A desperate fight retains its eternal value as an example. We are the supreme race. No inferior nation is going to teach us a lesson. I must return to the bunker. Immediately! I shall live there till we have done the job. Make sure that Goebbels, Bormann, and my physician are there.

Secretary: The chancellery is badly battered, my Führer. One wing has been demolished by bombs.

Hitler: I don't care! Do not judge the big picture by the small scene. Get me back there immediately! My problem is that I have been too kind all along. I rue the day I decided to be so kind. Slaughter, destruction ... that is what true victory is made of. We will show these idiots what we are made of. Their armies will lie buried beneath German dust. Millions of them.

Secretary: The reports are coming in that the people are terrified of Russian revenge. The word surrender is on many lips and-

Hitler: Do you not hear me? However grave the crisis, in the end it will be mastered by our unconquerable will. We will overcome this emergency. Never in my life will I accept surrender. I will fight on. We must stop these evil people and their evil leaders. Never give up. Never!

Secretary: Herr Speer would like a reply from you to his memo. There is more to it than I have read you.

Hitler: What does that traitor have to say?

Secretary: "My Führer, I am sending this memo to you to make sure I understand what you are saying. You wish everything destroyed-all electric plants, all our support systems, all our institutions? You want us to raze Germany to the ground?"

Hitler: You heard what I said. Tell him! The future belongs to the strong. I do not want the Eastern nations inheriting our strength. Burn everything. Everything! Give them nothing!

Daniel: Hold on a minute, Erik. I want this to reflect what really happened. Did Speer actually try to stop Hitler's scorched earth policy?

Erik: Yes, he did. He knew the game was over. Yet it was Speer who only a few years before had designed and planned the spectacular Party Rally that took place in this very city, not far from where we're standing right now. But in the end, he tried to stop it. He even tried to put poison gas into the bunker's air system, but it had just been reconfigured and that plot to kill Hitler failed, as well. Do you know there were forty-two attempts made to kill him ... and all failed!

Daniel: I knew there had been several. But now there was an army closing in. He had to have seen the handwriting on the wall. The Russians were at the gates of Berlin, Erik. The city was being put to the torch. He was writing his will. What was this nonsense about looking at the plans to redesign Linz, the city of his youth, at the same time? He was planning a dream city to be rebuilt there. This man was a cauldron of contradictions!

Erik: How does one get into the mind of a man so singularly barbaric and at the same time so persuasive to the masses? That will always remain a mystery. Who were these who followed him? How were they so seduced? Doesn't make sense.

Hitler: Who would have thought that I'd be hiding here like an animal underground? I'd rather be a dead Achilles than a living dog! And after thirty years of giving myself, my life, my everything for the love of the Fatherland ... Bring me the plans for Linz! I had a dream to rebuild it. It can still be done!

(Continues...)