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This Alten Kampfer (you know who I mean),
an old man now; veteran---the first World War:
He does believe that someone's time machine
snatched him out of a bunker in Berlin,
and changed the very course of history.
He speaks of it as though a mystery.
No "liberal fool" like I am understands,
he says, the way he purged the Fatherland
of Gypsies, Communists, Poles, Slavs, and Jews.
The time machine has made that "might have been."
For his own actions, he feels no regret;
and says that it could really happen yet,
and make of him a Fuhrer once again.
Profesionally, I am not a lazy
man but, truly, I utterly refuse
to listen to his morbid recitation
of torture, rape, and mass assasination
during what he called, "Night of the Long Knives"
(he even has the numbers; he kept score---
of those whom, he says, had dared to betray
the "Nazi Party," and were proved unfit
to live, or lead, under his full command.
And if that has not quite thoroughly shocked
you, he will gladly speak of "Krystalnacht"---
the night he just snuffed out so many lives.
But when his "Greater Germany" had flung
away chances that led to victory---
generals rejecting his new strategy---
continuation seemed no longer worth
the calling of its glorious destiny.

So he wrote "Project Gotterdamerung,"
the fire that rises from an atom's split,
accomplishing in its conclusive strike,
the full destruction of the corrupt earth.
He understood more then:  that the Third Reich
had been called to a final destiny---
to stand, with flags of swastikas unfurled---
and, with the Fatherland's prestige, preside
over that  last, dramatic detonation
to pulverize---not just conquer---the world.
But he never runs out of words to say,
recycling them in every combination
from his long thought on it.  A bestial pride
informs his swagger and his conversation.
We must find him some sort of occupation,
to free him from his strange imagination:
I think that would be the best therapy---
our motto is, of course, "Arbeit Macht Frei."
The War avenging Archduke Ferdinand's
murder plunged into blood our civilized
culture:  which staggered, nor regained the footing
it once had.  So we should not be surprised
that even some great scholars do not know
humanity convulsed in degradation,
bloodshed in frenzy thirty years ago
and four of those dread years---busily putting
both men and boys through stress that drove them crazy.

ENVOI:

I tell you this, because we have been friends

a long time.  I heard---Prester John intends

to ask the Mad Laws be reorganized.

And Alten Kampfer might, to, be surprised.

Starward