Himmler, Hamburg, Hugo Boss, S&M, Amphetamines, Crossing Guards & The Beatle
I still lack to a considerable degree that naturally superior kind of manner that I would dearly like to possess.
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Himmler is standing there in his tall, shiny black boots, Sam Browne belt, and long leather coat that flaired ever so slightly. He could have maybe passed for a secret agent – or pimp. If you’d asked him on that May day in 1945, he would have said he looked quite schnittig [rakish] – even disguised in a lowly sergeant’s uniform. Although to the attentive eye, this would have earned rightful suspicions. Like a keizer in heavyweight denim overalls, worn at the knees, or a he-man wrapped in a feather boa.
Two fresh-faced British soldiers who had seen no battle action, had stopped HH at the Civilian Interrogation Camp checkpoint in Lünberg, south of Hamburg. The younger soldier held out an expectant hand: “Papiere, bitte!” The “bitte” uttered curtly like the TIKTIK of a low-caliber pistol shot striking bone … or impudence. They enjoyed taking the piss out of Nazis – any German actually.
[The soundtrack: If left to HH, would have been something “German,” probably Wagner; or Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” I’d probably go with something tackier and I’d force HH to lip-sync – but misquote – the lyrics to Blue Oyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”: “Come on now baby, don’t you fear the reaper / I take you by the hand, don’t fear that reaper.” He’d be facing the camera singing off-key…]
HH stood tree still, strung out, dishevelled from a sleepless weekend spent in Hamburg. Despite believing his escape had been pre-arranged, he was not quite himself with perspiration beading up on his severe nose, as he handed over his papers with the crisp impertinent snap of rebuttal … But his aim was suspiciously off-target, to the left of the outstretched hand because at some point en route he had swapped his frameless eyeglasses for an eyepatch, shaved his mustache and, as his identity documents noted, he’d changed his name – but barely – from Heinrich Himmler to Heinrich Hitzinger.
Although desperate to escape – not even leaning over wife and kids to leave a last kiss on their sleeping foreheads, as he abandoned them to save his hide – this looked a lot like pride that just couldn’t let go of the fatal essence of who he was. And if there was ever any truth to the phrase “clothes make the man” it was never any truer for any man than for HH.
He had, over time, been the butt of some jokes; subordinates whispering behind his back about the mirror shine of his boots – hehe – working like upskirt search mirrors at official functions. But he was well aware how Nazi by-laws disguised his prurience as patriotic vigilance: He was well within his rights – and obligations.
And then there was his signature Sam Browne Belt [1] that he never left home without – not even on a day when it would have been smarter to leave it home. But hubris doesn’t know from smart.
The young Brits amused themselves with sarcasm directed at the farcical details of this most preposterous war. At this moment they still had no idea who they were taking the piss out of because this decidedly mousy, pudgy, weak-eyed, sickly complexioned “sergeant” was perhaps the least Aryan-looking Nazi of them all – except maybe Hitler himself. But protocol defined by the Geneva Conventions of 1929 dictated that they display a certain decorum or at least swallow their snickers discreetly.
It was at this moment that commanding officer, Sylvester Stuart, leaned into the left ear of one soldier and the right ear of the other. Whatever it was he said – probably “that’s Himmler, the architect of the concentration camps!” – HH, his lowly rank bluff called, grew visibly perturbed – hissy fit is what it might be called today.
“That belt you’re wearing – designed by an Englishman, by the way,” Stuart noted, “tells me something. I bet you’re NOT a sergeant at all — and you’re name’s not really Heinrich Hintzinger.”
Sensing insufficient deference, Himmler removed his eyepatch, placed the gold-framed spectacles on his sharp nose, and – enough was enough – identified himself. He handed them the withheld Entlassungsschein [2] as he haughtily thrust a thumb under his Sam Browne and struck a certain pose that was meant to project indignation.
Stuart held the document close to his face and groaned. He had seen this “official” stamp before. The same one had been used by many other fleeing SS officers before him.
“Counterfeit.” Stuart declared, gazing over at HH, who looked annoyed, bewildered. “Eine Fälschung!”
“I demand to see your senior commanding officer.” His impertinent bark in German did not make him any more convincing – or sympathetic. HH was not the deep thinker he sometimes wished he was. And he’d always come across as someone chained to the pragmatic and mundane. Transcendence was something that had always alluded him even when dressed in his most sartorially coercive uniforms.
Even hours of listening to his hero Wagner could not teach him the true mechanics of sway. He sensed that when Wagner stated: “Foreboding, is an instinctive longing for definement through an object,” it might as well have been derisively aimed right at him.
“Nicht gut,” Stuart declared, holding the useless certificate, a spot of newspaper with dried blood from a shaving cut on his chin.
“I demand an audience with your General Eisenhower – and your General Montgomery! Unmittelbar!!”
And who ARE you? As if I didn’t already bloody know.” The belt, counterfeit stamp, those suspenders, the tall, shiny boots …
“I believe I can be of value in your impending battle with the barbarian Russian hordes. I offer peace and my exceptional training.” He was not the only Nazi to make this judgement error. Many were convinced that the Allies [well, not the Russians] would be impressed by their credentials, and see their value as Allies in the struggle against Communism.
“Tell it to the cleaning lady, our Putzfrau! I have direct orders from HQ to ignore any and all offers.”
“Das ist lächerlich!!” [That’s laughable!]
“But true.”
Humility was not his Ding; he deserved treatment commensurate of a man of his rank and stature – period. Mentally he was already reciting the long version of his very impressive resumé: To begin with, he was Reichsfuehrer SS, second-in-command of all Nazi Germany, Chief of the Terror Apparatus, Master of the Concentration Camps, Genius behind the Gas Chambers and the use of Zyklon B as a “humane” application of the Final Solution, Creator of the camp brothels as motivation to reward non-Jewish prisoners, Overseer of the extermination of millions, and, well, not to brag, kind of responsible for changing world history, and, oh yes, at Auschwitz he had trained Deutscher Schäferhunden to “rip people apart.”
Silence. His recitation of his many accomplishments without a hint of shame or prudence did not fetch the desired reaction. In fact it prompted the young soldiers to burst out singing: “Hitler has only got one ball / Göring has two but very small / Himmler is rather sim’lar / But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.” A snicker exploded but was instantly doused by the twosome. HH offered them his most expressive sneer because this impertinent ditty had followed him for years. Even among his own subordinates. Derivative and not very clever, he thought, as he considered warning them he’d sic some of his well-trained dogs on them if they weren’t careful. But, alas, a detained and defrocked commander, no matter how tall and shiny his boots, is in no position to issue demands or threats.His British audience remained severely unimpressed. The deal he sought was just not happening. In a panic, he explained how he had recently personally overseen the transfer of Theresienstadt concentration camp prisoners – reportedly 20,000 – to Switzerland, as a gesture of good faith and humanity – and PR.
“I don’t give two pins.”
Suddenly they grabbed his arms, summarily removing him to an inspection room at Second Army Headquarters. Here he was stripped of his belt, boots and dignity. In uniform he could pose as someone too large for his own miniscule soul. But naked he was nothing. An army doctor gruffly examined him, inspecting various orifices for contraband, weapons and suicide pills.
His Hugo Boss uniform with the slogan: “Stay focused / Be consistent” sewn into the collar, was a craftsmanship sight to behold. The British doctor, however, was not interested in couture. If he had been given the freedom to speak, HH would have explained how he was the one who had ordered designers to come up with a sleak, black paramilitary uniform for both the SS and Wehrmacht. HH was very pleased with the designs. The manufacturing was left to numerous small German firms, with HH preferring those delivered by the Hugo Boss Atelier in Metzingen. Boss, a donor and active member of the Nazi Party, produced exquisitely tailored work and ingeniously employed a workforce of female forced laborers and French POWs – quality at a low price! HH never tired of showing off the craftsmanship, rubbing the seams between his thumb and forefinger, trying to convince dignitaries of their artistry at every social gathering.
As the doctor attempted to check his mouth, HH grew suddenly distressed. The doctor discovered a blue capsule hidden in the far back of his cheek. The doctor tried to pry it out with the wooden tongue depressor. But HH managed to maneuver the cyanide capsule between his right molars and there cracked it, releasing an almost not unpleasant almond scent.[3] The deed had been done. Headache, dizziness, shortness of breath, muscle spasms, agony, and finally, shock, seizure, loss of consciousness, cardiac arrest and death, all within mere minutes.
As he lay dying, legend has it, he issued these last words: “Jetzt bin ich der Tod geworden, der Zerstörer der Welten [4],” spitefully depriving Churchill of the spectacle of HH squirming first in the witness stand and later from the end of a rope, officially hung using a short drop to ensure a slow, miserable death.
A stomach pump, forced vomiting, and artificial respiration could not resuscitate him. A British intelligence officer managed to snap a photo while HH “was still warm,” revealing that he died with his spectacles on – but not his boots.
Autopsy: Dead body of male measuring 166cm, 68 kg±, of slight build; traces of the test drug D-IX in blood. Lungs congested, swollen with excessive blood mixed with froth, mucosa congested, pink lividity, odor of bitter almonds, gastritis, oral cavity erosions. Cause of death: Respiratory Failure as result of consumption of capsule containing cyanide. Hydrocyanic acid – very potent, extremely lethal and rapid-acting substance and almost always fatal.
The unnamed pathologist described HH as “a mousy, unathletic, dough-faced, devilish creature with a shriveled willy” – off the record, of course.
Before HH was buried in an anonymous grave on the edge of town, an enterprising soldier gathered HH’s belt, eyepatch, boots and other elements of his Modekollektion, further ransacking his suitcase of black silk shirts, pyjamas, socks, and handkerchiefs – all monogrammed – totenkopf [dead’s head] badges, cigarette case, and his leather Sam Browne belt. A stack of photos of soldiers dressed in drag posed in a concentration camp courtyard also went missing.
How I stumbled upon this tale: [Soundtrack: “The Crossing Guard” by Freddy “BoomBoom” Cannon, 1964,[5] Warner Brothers: “I heard it today / in the yard / they all say / she’s in love with the crossing guard”].
When clearing out my mother’s basement several years back I ran across my old crossing guard belt. Honestly, I was surprised she’d saved it all this time. She’d thrown out so much of the past that it was as if we hadn’t ever actually existed, as if I’d just been placed on this earth at age 30+ like a chess pawn placed on a black square in a corner.
When I was in 5th grade, 1960-something, I served as a crossing guard and wore this white cloth waistbelt and shoulder strap, the design of which had been invented by Sam Browne, a one-armed British officer. My classmates, especially the rowdies, with their rolled sleeves where they dreamt of storing packs of Luckies, invented all manners of crossing everywhere except at my crosswalk – neneneNEneNe – great rebellious fun, flipping me the bird, all things they never grew tired of. It aroused in me mixed feelings regarding authority: Did I really care that they did not notice my concern for their safety or that they thought it cool to cross anywhere but at the crosswalk? Why did I take on the belt and begin acting precisely the way the belt demanded of me? Was I looking to swell my sense of self? Or had I simply fallen under the allurement of a uniform? There must be some psychological term for this attraction to a uniform that symbolizes power, order, valor other than uniform fetishism.
I spent some time down in the basement fiddling with it; upstairs I stood in front of my mother’s bedroom mirror. A short spool of 8mm film of my strange “adventures” as a crossing guard blurred past …
I tightened the belt around my chest because I’d learned from “The Night Porter” that this type of constriction can arouse an element of erotic transgression – and the tighter the belt the more one might feel that dynamic tension between a too-tight belt and highs associated with status acknowledged, mores transgressed, strange nudities entertained, and the lightheadedness associated with a lack of oxygen reaching the brain.
I took it off, rubbed the rough cloth and, upon closer inspection, noticed a label near the buckle that said: Sicherheit Gürtel Fabrikant [SGF], Hamburg. And so, on a whim – no real planning or research, other than obtaining the factory address, 3rd-year German from 30 years ago, plus a photo of the belt and the Hamburg pages torn from an old 1970s “Frommer’s Germany” guidebook, I flew to Hamburg.
- Hamburg is known for its port, briny air, St. Pauli soccer team with its skull-&-crossbones logo, and the Beatles. It was also rumored to be an easy escape route for Himmler andhis kind. I was looking forward to just wandering the streets but first I had arranged a meeting with SGF rep, Jupp Brahms – “call me ‘Joe’” – at the former factory, now the SGF museum and administrative offices.
“It’s nice you still exist.”
“Yes, in some way we do. But much of unsere Produktion is now in Asia. Here we only answer telephones and move around papers.” He grabbed an unruly wave of hair and tried to pin it behind his ear. The leather buttons of his stiff-collared, untucked dress shirt may have been of SGF manufacture, but I forgot to ask.
Toward the end of our pleasant conversation over coffee and spice cookies I mentioned Himmler. A bemused-pained smile drifted across his face … He stood and led me down a narrow hallway to a glass display case that held the notorious Himmler-style Sam Browne Belt, hanging from a vintage harbor clevis hook.
“Did he wear this one?”
“Ja, but he had maybe one dozen others too. We make them all here. But that is before my time.”
Jupp and his colleagues were miffed by my interest so I ensured them that I was not some pilgrimaging neo-Nazi.
“It’s not to worship him. I want to find out how something like a belt can help make the man, can help him drift into tyranny.”
Despite a complicated relationship with shame vs pride, SGF had been very willing to oblige, however awkwardly Jupp spoke of this contentious strip of fetishized leather. But, after an hour or so of indulging me, Jupp politely stood to announce: “I must make a call now to an Asian rep; we have an urgent situation there.”
It was just as well because I had my heart set on wandering Hamburg, especially St. Pauli. I consulted the torn guidebook, the circled highlights led me to the Reeperbahn-St. Pauli district, the Red Light District, good for color photography – cameras allow you to act like you have no interest in the seediness except to indulge the camera’s aesthetic.
It is here that I discovered Der Verlust, The Lost Dungeon, a notorious dive on a grimy, narrow St. Pauli side street. The dark purple door cracked open; I entered meekly, calling out: “Hallo. Ist jemand da?”
In the basement I found Otto, up on a ladder, fiddling with a disco ball. He climbed down, grabbed his squat bottle of Astra and seemed very keen to practice his English on me.
He was quite impressed – or so I thought – that I had come to discuss the Sam Browne Belt.
“Who knows any more except the people who come out only in the night,” He observed, with a smile accented by the ceiling spots as he curled his wormy forefinger, signaling for me to follow him. We wended through a penumbral labyrinth that held a bouquet of suggestively pungent odors to an old disused lockerroom and there, with a special key, he opened a special locker.
There he – balding, St. Pauli football jersey, ex-drummer – held the specimen in his upturned hands as if it was Jesus’s very own crown of thorns. But, in reality, the belt did not mean much to him other than as mysterious curiosity and revenue enhancer. You see, Himmler’s belt is reserved for special Dungeon gold card members – the discreet, wealthy kinky among the BDSM crowd. For example, to requisition it as sexual toy for the night, costs an extra €666 euros above the standard price.
“It is voodoo of a dirty history, my friend. Go ahead, you may touch it. Feel the power.” He was being sarcastic and he appreciated that I had noticed; it meant his English was working just fine.
“Can I put it on?” Hesitation. “Just for a minute. But no photos. We do not allow that. You understand.”
“I do.” I didn’t really. I was just amazed to learn how the worlds of Nazism, S&M, and school crossing guards were so oddly intertwined …
We stood silently, me looking at my reflection. Him looking into space, sipping his Astra. I was unsure what exactly I was supposed to be seeing or feeling. But I was trying.
“In 1945, Himmler was lost in a haze of drug taking and going-crazy Genuss … how you say, indulging here when this place still had the name die Verbotene Frucht. You know, trying to forget the history of who he had become.”
He had fled his home before dawn, patting his pocket on the way out to be sure he had remembered his D-IX tablets. D-IX, a drug comprised of 5 mg cocaine [basically crystal meth], 3 mg of pervitin [an amphetamine] and 5 mg of eukodal, a painkiller, had under HH’s supervision been tested on prisoners at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The drug was supposed to give soldiers superhuman strength and unbelievable endurance. Prisoners were made to march all day, some 90 km with 20 kg rucksacks on their backs, and they showed no signs of exhaustion. Only wanted to go-Go-GO. HH was so impressed by the results that he filled an empty Trachiform lozenge tin with a handful of the tablets that he would save for this, his last exodus.
He had left the belt behind when he, unable to pay, having misplaced his wallet, offered to pay with the belt for the services he had partaken of.
“For your information, he loved to wear the belt very tight across a puff-up chest; the belt is tight and maybe offered extra Kitzel … I think you say tittilating. He chose the most Jewish-looking dominatrix, he was up all night with her. Ironic, but I think maybe he hide his sexuality in cruelty. He came down hard on homosexuals, so one is believing he was actually killing away, cleaning his own impure appetites. The belt is an icon, ein heiliger Gral in the Hamburg BDSM scene. They say that it has sinister powers that drive some to excess.”
The belt, we may assume, allowed HH to become the person he had longed to be, projecting authority, virility, righteous vengeance – all of the things he could not evince without the belt. In his diaries he portrays himself as a lustful animal, coiled snake, brooding panther. But despite his self-enamored observations, he lacked confidence; had great difficulty finding girlfriends. This sense of inadequacy was reconstituted as contempt for those who did not share his shortcomings, those who got the girls.
“I’m glad I’m not annoying to you.”
“You are OK. Many people come by only to take their naughty photos for home. One writer of a 1991 book on our subject state that Himmler desired super masculinity like some Prussian warrior-superhero, but he was no athlete, unable to even kick a football in goal from 2 meters. Had the physique and tiny penis of a sickly boy, with no vigor except when stimulated by torture and killing.”
“I read that he ordered executions as he was massaged by a prisoner about to meet her own death.”
“Yes, I have no doubt. He could enjoy a meal at Buchenwald before he order people to the gas chambers. But let us both agree: he. was. ugly. Like he wear his soul on his face.” We both shook our heads.
I thanked Otto profusely with a double-hand-in-double-handshake and a bow of respect.
On the street, I turned to my guidebook pages, with red-ink-circled information about the Beatles in those nascent days. I roamed, dazzled by the alluring neon, seedy clubs, transvestites, prostitutes, drunken sailors, petty gangsters in coats way too long for their height and barker-bouncers who badger-lure patrons inside to listen to live music with enforced 3-drink minimums of over-priced Babycham and watered-down beers. I imagined HH high on his D-IX wandering these same streets, obliterating anxiety, regret, self-recrimination. Perhaps encountering a speakeasy where Swingjugend, anti-Nazi jazz-fanatic kids, satirized Hitler and jitterbugged to the jazz of Basie, Goodman and Ellington. Maybe he made a mental note of the address to later order the SS to raid the place, round them up to transport to Neuengamme “to prevent the dangerous spread of these Neger and anglophile tendencies” but other concerns arose and he forgot all about it. HH was, however, also about to discover that indulgence, no matter how fixed on obliteration, only ever offers temporary amnesia.
Der Verlust, it so happened, was located around the corner from where the Beatles first played in the Red Light District where “the streets once prickled,” my “Frommer Germany” guidebook noted, “with insinuated conflict and unresolved broken tales.”
I was not quick enough to snap a photo of Charlotte Rampling as she dashed by, head down, late for an important date. Although, it must have been just a fan [or a phantom] dressed like her. An English tour guide holding a colorful umbrella aloft in Beatle-Platz shouted to a huddle of tourists: “When you listen to the earliest Beatles records you can hear the frenetic tension of the streets and the feverish dreams … Here the music scene embodied tolerance as a healthy development – no small achievement in a land just beginning to confront its terrible past …”
In shop windows lit by twitchy neon, I saw Beatle floor mops, Beatle condoms,[6] Beatle wigs, original Beatle card collections for €3000, an “original pressing” of a most coveted LP, “The Beatles & Frank Ifield On Stage” [1964, VeeJay] was selling in the Kitsch Vintage Nostalgia Trödel store window for €22,000 with a sign paperclipped to it: “WARNING: NO LP in album cover!!” There were Lennon toilet seats, Chinese replicas of McCartney’s Höfner bass and Harrison’s Gretsch leaning enticingly in a window decorated with blinking X-mas lights. Prints of sub-par Beatle portraits, photo glossies of Lady GoGo, a local Lady GaGa impersonator wearing the famous Charlotte Rampling “Night Porter” outfit: long gloves, bare breasts covered by suspenders, SS cap at a jaunty slant on her head. A dusty, neglected VHS video of “The Beatles Live at Shea Stadium,” 4-paks of Beatle Beer with a likeness of one Beatle on each of the 4 cans, and the SS&M Emporium selling Nazi-themed bondage gear.
I glanced at my pages in a light mizzle that spreads a sneeze of light over everything so that everyone looks angelic and capable of escaping their bodies at will. For two years, the crumpled pages say, the Beatles performed in clubs along the Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit Strasse. After playing the shabby Indra, with its stage of old church doors balanced on beer crates, they moved on to Wunderland bei Nacht, the FIPS Club, Wooden Heart, and the spacious Wirtschaftswunder.
Only a plaque along the Paul-Roosen Strasse marks the former location of the squalid Bambi Kino, the Beatles first “home,” the subject of the obscure song “This No Place Called Home”: “living in the loo / bad movies here / give you no clue / a diet of watery beer and Preludin / and pray that they let you back in” [written-sung by Lennon, on the “Hamburg Wonderland Tapes, 1962,” [originally on Odeon 1963 on red “Everclean” vinyl, which scientifically minimized static electricity / rerelease Capitol 2009]. No heat except a hot plate, no wallpaper, no furniture and whenever the old lady moviegoers went to the toilet you could hear all their private “farts, groans and tittletattle,” as Lennon put it.[7]
Stu Sutcliffe’s girlfriend, Aditi Pilchard, would bring them pastries, coffee and a handful of Prellies in the morning. One day she took them to the legendary hair salon Haar Haar [literally Her Hair], owned by Dutch hairdresser Keedy Kapsalon, famous for doing the district’s drag queens and sex show performers. Here Pilchard described the first mop-top haircut, which Keedy gave them, paid for by Aditi herself. Although she is credited with inventing the mop top, she claimed it was already popular among the art school crowd she hung out with.
Pilchard began taking photos of the Beatles. They were flattered and actually, too lazy and chaotic to arrange anything on that level themselves. Besides, she took great photos of them everywhere including, early on, in a nearby park with a merry-go-round.
My last stop into Beatles territory was Das Funkie Kämpferin [The Funky Fighter] Club, a “dance palace for youth” with a real stage, class acts and a decent PA with reverb, echo and 4 inputs, a chic red satin curtain that was steam-cleaned monthly, which impressed George Harrison, and nightclub seating with no broken chairs.
The owner of this club, Lydia Folkart(ova), was 9 when she arrived in Hamburg from Czechoslovakia via Switzerland. She was one of the few suriving children transported from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp[8] to Switzerland, eventually arriving in Hamburg with a man who claimed to be some sort of uncle. Here she studied maritime commerce at the University of Hamburg and drifted into the emerging “beat” music scene, becoming the owner of a music club when the original owner died and the rundown building was being sold for almost nothing. She dubbed it Das Funkie Kämpferin, in honor of her spunky mother.
Lydia hired the Beatles to play 3 sets 6 nights a week and was pleased with their growing popularity. She hired Hann Faschiseln, an ex-boxing champ as the bouncer and to protect them from themselves and the rougher crowds. Especially Lennon who was known to urinate out the Kino window or, if you annoyed him, piss down your leg while talking to you.
Lennon went missing during a McCartney solo one night and Faschiseln found him in the toilet necking with a woman. He poured a bucket of ice water over them and Lennon. Soaking wet, he refused to go back on stage. Faschiseln ordered Lennon to play or have a persuasive conversation with his blackjack. And so Lennon reappeared on stage – naked except for his underpants and a toilet seat around his neck.
Folkart subsidized the release of their second record, “The Beatles: Live! in Hamburg, 1962” [1963, Folkart Oeuvre], using a Josef Sudek photo of her mother sitting in a Prague prewar cafe for the cover. It was recorded at the cramped Akustik Studios, known for its dodgy acoustics and no mixingboard. It was here that they’d earlier finished their first recordings as the backup group for Tony Sheridan on “My Bonnie.”
It is said that the Beatles returned in 1966 and ran into Werner Klemperer, son of composer Otto, who’d once assisted Kämpfert in scouting out new “beat” talent. Kämpfert had recorded their first LP, “The Hamburg Twist” & “The Liverpool Wet Nelly,” which he’d lent his signature lush sound to in the Akustik.
Upon meeting Werner, Lennon took out a black comb and held it to his upper lip and barked in fake German “Hey, Hitler.” To which Klemperer, already famous for his role as Colonel Klink, a bumbling Concentration camp commmandant on “Hogan’s Heroes,” was coaxed into uttering his signature half-hearted, dismissive “Heil Hitler” salute, adding: “I am not a real Nazi, although I play one on TV.”
Lennon was chuffed, patted Klemperer heartily on the back, offered him a beer and a part in his new movie, “How I Won the War.” Well, not his movie, Lennon corrected, but said he could put in a good word for Werner because he’d be perfect as a German officer in this upcoming war satire. We do not know how Klemperer responded but he does not appear in the credits…
- Several months after my return, I was sitting in my kitchen with my laptop open, listening to The Forgotten Unknowns, a compilation of Hamburg Anglo-bands less famous than the Beatles including the Tin Panics, The Lamp Prays and The Neon Wurst when an email arrived:
I cannot say who gave me this secret information. I will say an ex British officer could not pay for drinks and he make a deal we fall for: say he knows where Himmler is buried. Would I like this information. I take the information. I have nothing with Himmler and I am German-Czech always supicious of all Nazi doings. I was let survive by him playing god. I am grateful to him that I am alive to always envision his pathetic dying by cyanide. A poetry: he use same poison he inflict on us victims. I meditate much and find peaceful moments. I suspect all those politely acting like they are not turned on by evil. I trust you. I don’t know why. Just a feeling. Even at my age I fall for feelings. After he kill himself, in total dark, four British Soldaten take his Leiche from Luneburg in Army truck and in secret bury him in an unmarked Grab on Luneburg Heide outside Town. They want you to believe no one knows where exactly. Here is the information in case. Do not call me to go with you. I will never go.
Your freund,
Lydia
I wrote back immediately:
Dear Lydia,
So good to hear from you. I am not interested in that way. If I do ever find myself in the area – to visit you, for instance – I will drink a lot of beer and then piss on his grave for a long time. …
~~~~~~~~
bart plantenga
1 Also called the “Liberty belt,” it became a symbol of public sector authority for bus drivers, Canadian Mounties, British Army officers – and junior safety patrol school crossing guards. It was designed in the late 19th century by a one-armed British officer, Sam Browne. Like a normal belt, you fastened it around the waist and then slung an extra strap diagonally across the chest up and over the right shoulder to secure it. This was so that Browne could draw his sword from its scabbard with just one hand. It is most often associated with military or police uniforms, especially those of totalitarian states.
2 Certificate of release that bore a counterfeit stamp that was meant to serve as a get out of jail card fleeing SS officers.
3 Ironically, the Zyklon B poison HH ordered to kill millions contained the same cyanide that would rob him of his proper punishment.
4 As Robert Oppenheimer witnessed the first detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945, a piece of Hindu scripture ran through his mind: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” perhaps, the most famous line from the Bhagavad Gita.
5 Born Freddy Picariello, Cannon had many 1960s hits for Dick Clark’s Swan label inc. “Palisades Park.”
6 Because “Beatle” rhymes with “Piedel,” German slang for penis.
7 Samples of these recordings found their way onto the Lennon-Ono experimental albums Fly and Unfinished Music No. 1.
8 Theresienstadt was a model concentration camp. All was fine here. Smiling captives, crafts and exercise. Folkart got an apple and a ragdoll when it was announced that the Red Cross was going to inspect conditions here. Folkart called it “the most sinister movie set ever built” because it had hoodwinked the entire world.
.