One thing that I have kept secret for a long time is my the role I played during the Holocaust and the ties I held with Adolf Hitler. I have done all I can through the years to conceal my identity, but I have to let it all out. I have to tell somebody. I've done such a successful job that many of you have probably learned in your history classes that Heinrich Himmler was the leader of the SS and the chief of German police. It's all a lie. It was me.
One particularly interesting conversation I had with Hitler himself occured on the night of April 18, 1943. I was the chief of police and leader of the SS, so anytime Hitler had something on his mind that he wanted to share or get feedback about I was always the first person he called upon for advice.
I arrived that evening after being called upon and was greeted by one of my officers who was on duty as Hitler's body guard, and he warned me that the Fuhrer simply wasn't acting like himself. He explained to me that he had been standing on his balcony staring at nothing, into the distance, for 3 to 4 hours before he had called for me. I asked the officer, "What in the hell?"
Sure enough, when I entered his office he was still staring into the distance. Not moving a muscle. In my head I was thinking, "What in the hell?" I said to him, "What is it that you've been staring at for the past 3 to 4 hours Hitz? What's on your miind?" (He and I went way back and Hitz was just a nickname I gave him when we were kids.)
He pointed to the west and said, "See there?" And I pointed to the west and said, "There by the old cathedral?" He said, "No a little further to the north, that open field." I said, "Ah, I see it now."
"That's the field we are planning for the next concentration camp to occupy. I think it's big enough. We are running out of room in the other camps and need to expand. You would think that by now people would stop being Jewish. Yet, there's more Jews than ever. Like being a Jew is hip. Some of them think it's noble to die for what they believe in. Some of them just just fear eternal separation from their maker if they don't die for what they believe in. What are they to do? Do they say 'No I'm not a Jew' to spend five maybe nine years longer alive when they were taught since they could crawl that those who weren't Jewish would live no longer than the short time their soul was trapped inside of flesh? I think they're too scared to pretend."
Puzzled, I responded, "Did you invite me over to ask me if I approved of the site you have chosen for the next camp? Is that what you've been thinking about all this time that you have been staring into the distance? Is that what you've been thinking about while you were just looking out into the middle of nowhere? If so, I approve of the site. I think it is fine. I can't imagine a way to fit more than two gas chambers on the plot, so it will be smaller than the others but it's acceptable for now to deal with the growing demand?"
"No that's not why I brought you here. I'm beginning to question myself. I wanted to discuss it with you. I wonder if I'm really doing the right thing. Is killing all of these Jews really what I am here to do? I have never felt guilty about the Jews I rid the world of, but today is as rare that I can barely take it. I feel like falling on my knees, burying my head in my hands, and weeping."
I reminded him of the time that he told us all that he was doing God's work. He told us all that we were doing God's work. He was confused about whether or not it really was God who had told him to kill all these Jews. I asked him if the thought woke him up in the middle of the night. I asked him if when he thought these thoughts when he was awake if it sounded as if it was a voice in his head sounding similar to his own voice yet somewhat deeper, more distinguished, and echoed a little bit in his brain. He told me that sounds about right. I assured him that it was definitely God, then. I told him that's what God sounds like.
At this point, I confessed to him that at one point during 1942, around March, I was experiencing some of the same guilty concerns. I told him that sometimes I would sit up for hours before I could fall asleep thinking about what I was accomplishing by killing all these Jews. All of these Jews that I had never personally known anything about besides that they believed in talking snakes.
"How did you deal with the guilt? Of all my men, you are the hardest on the Jews. I can't imagine you ever feeling any guilt or remorse. How did you do it?" Hitz asked me.
I proclaimed that the first thing that came to mind was the economy. I would ask myself, "How are we going to deal with the unemployment rates? I told myself that our children grew up and trained their whole lives to join the SS because they saw how successful we were and the comfortable lives we lead. Who am I to take these dreams away from our children? What are they going to do when they are finally accepted into the SS, and all of a sudden we aren't killing Jews anymore. What would they do then? All they have studied for years is how to spot a Jew and how to exterminate one. I told him that I didn't want to be the one who told my hard working, dedicated child that all he had worked for to live the dream life was a lost cause.
I had to go into detail for Hitler to understand the effects it would have on the economy. I told him as long as we kept killing Jews, a man would be making money walking a Jew to the gas chamber, a different man would be making money turning the gas on, and a different man who would come into the chamber afterwards to clean it would be making money. I explained that as long as there were Jews, and as long as we had enough Germans who wanted them dead that our economy would prosper. How would we replace all of these jobs? I asked him if he wanted to be the Fuhrer who went down in history as the leader of Germany when it experienced the worst economic instability conceptualized.
Then I explained to him that if we stopped killing Jews that everyone would want to be Jewish. I asked what would hold them back. I told him that people would be lined up outside of churches, and we would surely have to spend our own money on building new churches to accommodate rather than the wine and decor we spend it on now.
After I explained the consequences of terminating the termination of the Jews, Hitz just stood continuing to stare into the middle of nowhere as he was before I arrived. He never specifically affirmed to me that he agreed with the advice I gave him, but evidently he did since he went on killing Jews for the next two years before killing himself. He may have been a Jew deep down and couldn't stand it.
Fortunately, he did take my advice didn't go down in history as the man who led Germany into a deep depression because of the loss of jobs in the Jew Killing industry that provided so many jobs. If it wasn't for me, his reputation would have been ruined.