The Unofficial Organ II:1
[Translator’s note: In February of 1933, the Nazi party faced an election which threatened to disappoint their hopes. Shortly before the election, the Reichstag, home of the German Chamber of Deputies, caught fire in twenty places simultaneously. The Nazis instantly blamed the Communists, though it was widely suspected that the Nazis themselves had set the fires. Only recently have the records of the Deputies’ investigation of the fire come to light. Some of the salient passages of the hearings follow, translated, with the greatest difficulty, into English.]
A Dramatic Outburst
(Herr unterKolonel Jessel, Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief, testifying)
Deputy I [Deputies are identified by numerals only, since they were indistinguishable from each other in all essential characteristics]: So, you are telling us then –
Herr unterKolonel Jessel: Of course, gentlemen – and I thank the living God that made me that you are gentlemen, every man-Jack of you, since deputies as a class are feckless ignoramuses and biddy-like blabbermouths – Gentlemen, I was saying, you must realize two things about this extraordinarily brave and supremely humble unterKolonel here pinioned on the cross of your power by the spears of your cruel and relentless questionings: One, he took an oath, when he entered the Wehrmacht, to always tell the truth; Two, he has some really good friends, some of them related to him by sacred family ties, that he would hate to see blown to kingdom come by some mud-eyed Moravian Red. As would yourselves, I am sure.
Deputy I: I am certain my fellow deputies are at one with me in the deep admiration I have for your achievements in making friends and having a family –
Herr Besserwisser [unterKolonel Jessel’s attorney]: Cut it short, there. I’m getting pretty sick of having to tell you people, quit badgering my client. I’ve told you he isn’t guilty of anything, and if he is, whatever it is he’d guilty of shouldn’t be called wrong, because he does everything he does for the highest motives, for God’s sake, and he didn’t know it was wrong, anyway, even though he didn’t do it.
Deputy I: – if I may continue….I merely wanted to ask this brave and courageous young man of steel and sinew why, if he took an oath to tell the truth, he cheerfully admits to not telling the truth to us about this fire?
Herr unKolonel Jessel: Let this fellow, Jessel, try to get it across to you this way, if God is willing to give you the gift of comprehension: I did not admit to not telling the truth. I said I had reconfigured the facts. Now, that is certainly not “not telling the truth;” it is reconfiguring.
Deputy I: Oh, reconfiguring.
Other Deputies: Oh, reconfiguring.
Clarification
(Admiral Donuts, Assistant Chief to the Chief, testifying)
Deputy IV: So, as I understand it, you are telling us that you ordered these fires to be set, that you didn’t know that they were to be set, that you knew that Herr Hitler would approve your order to set them which you never discussed with him, except when you did, and that he is not not-telling the truth when he denies that he would have approved the plan if you had told it to him, and you are not not-telling the truth when you say he would have. Do I have it straight now?
Admiral Donuts: Basically, yes, you have taken my meaning. Though of course in other ways, basically you have not.
Deputy IV: Admiral, could you clarify that last response?
Admiral Donuts: I would be most happy to attempt to do so, sir, but it would require my divulging Classified Information, Information which, should it subsequently come bubbling out over the loose lips of some nameless, flaccid nincompoop, could trickle into the consciousness of the sacred German people, who will only approve of correct policies if they remain in utter ignorance of all significant facts. Or “data,” as we professionals call them.
Deputy IV: Admiral, I can’t help but sense that sometimes you seem to, ah, contradict yourself.
(At this point, Herr Fliegenschnapfer, Admiral Donuts’ attorney of record, seized a water carafe and began to make hurling gestures toward Deputy IV. He was quelled by the Admiral, himself, with great urbanity.)
Admiral Donuts: Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. You see? I admit it. Because I am right. For, at the moments of greatest peril – and, gentlemen, I cannot tell you or the great German people too often, it is a perilous world, a dangerous world, a vicious, sickening, confusing world – in the moments of greatest peril, I reiterate, it is necessary to move above wrong, into the True, Higher Right. As our great leader has done, and not done.
Deputy IV: I am deeply disturbed by some of what you tell us Admiral, deeply disturbed. Yet I am also deeply grateful to you for your testimony, which has proved to be profoundly baffling, and cause for deep concern and even deeper gratitude for the democratic institutions which have allowed it to baffle us.
The People Speak
(Admiral Donuts continuing his testimony)
Deputy II or VII: Admiral, you have testified that, basically, you and unterKolonel Jessel and a few hired street scum set all these fires, and that you were saying the thing that was not when you told everyone, including us just now, that the Communists set these fires?
Admiral Donuts: Affirmative, sir. Negative, sir.
Deputy II or VII: What?
Admiral Donuts: Excuse my barely perceptible patient sigh….If the fires didn’t start, the Communists might have won the election. The people are afraid of the Communists. So, if we didn’t burn the Reichstag a little, the people’s worst fears would have come true, n’est ce pas? So, really, the Communists made us do it, and so did the people. It was their will. So we didn’t do it, even though we did it.
Deputy II or VII: But you were supposed to tell some of us, so they could not-tell the rest of the deputies, and demonstrate our deep loyalty and circumspection.
Admiral Donuts: Someone would have told. And then the people would have got wind of it, and become confused in inappropriate ways. They might have been deluded into thinking we were not correct in knowing they wanted us to do what they thought they didn’t want us to do.
Deputy II or VII: But how can you know the people’s will if you don’t consult with their elected deputies?
Admiral Donuts: The German people have always hated Communism. Everyone knows that. They have hated it ever since the 15th Century.
Deputy II or VII: Admiral, there was no such thing as Communism in the 15th Century.
Admiral Donuts: That is how much the German people hate it, sir. They hated it even when it didn’t exist.
A Father’s Heart
(unterKolonel Jessel re-testifying)
Deputy Something: Now, you have testified that your motives in this were entirely patriotic –
unterKolonel Jessel (here the unterKolonel began to weep unreservedly, possibly at the thought of his patriotism)
Deputy Something: – and that you received no extrinsic rewards for your services to Herr Hitler, except, of course, for the rewards you did receive –
unterKolonel Jessel (sobbing): My infant son! Fruit of my best friend’s womb! I know it was the gravest mistake of my life to take it, but it was a father’s heart speaking! Surely, sir, you can find it in your heart to thank God for the promptings of a Father’s Heart! The little shaver never asked for anything –
Deputy II or VII (awakening suddenly): What is he talking about?
Deputy Something: Poland
Further Clarification
(unterKolonel Jessel continues to re-testify)
Deputy I: So, Herr unterKolonel, a reasonable man could view your acts as inspired efforts in the defense of German democracy –
unterKolonel Jessel: No, sir, begging your pardon, sir. All this soldier has done is his very best, which is, I’m sure, a poor thing, although he is deeply proud of what he has done and not done.
Herr Besserwisser: Why don’t you geriatric swine just pack it in? And stop badgering my client!
He limps, if you didn’t notice.
Deputy I: Yes…well, yes, yes, I think we may as well conclude our hearing. For we have found the truth, which is that we are not going to find it, what with one thing and another. And the truth shall make us free. Herr unterKolonel, do you have any further harangues to make?
unterKolonel Jessel (here he consulted with his drama coach while rapidly signing contracts): Only this, sir: Sometimes it is necessary to destroy Democracy in order to save it. And I want to personally thank Almighty God and His Best Friend and Infant Son that we live in a democracy that can be so saved.
Deputies en masse: Jolly good! Yes, sir! Quite right, quite right! Deeply inspiring! Deeply troubling! Bravo!….
[Translator’s note: In actuality these portions of the transcript may not be the most salient, but they shall have to suffice, as the remaining 17,000 pages have been recently consumed in a mysterious blaze at the translator’s office. As Deputy I’s closing remarks implied, the origins of the Reichstag fire were not determined by the Deputies at this time. This did not much matter, however, since Admiral Donuts, at some time during his testimony, had prevailed upon Hitler to suspend all civil and individual rights. This suspension was immediately followed by the arrest of all deputies determined by HItler to be secretly opposed to the Democratic Process as expressed by the will of the people, and by the historic vote of the Reichstag which granted Chancellor Hitler power to legislate anything and everything all by himself. It was duly noted of this historic act that the Reichstag would remain unaffected by it, as would Democracy.]
