The Blood Flag (28 page)

Eidhalt stepped up to the microphone. “I told you I had a surprise. The surprise is far greater than anything you could have imagined. I knew when I issued my challenge that one of you would distinguish himself in a way that would set the direction of this movement for the remainder of a thousand years that began with the
Führer
. As you can see in the image behind me, the most treasured item in Nazi lore was the
Blutfahne
. The Blood Flag. And many of you, who know our history, know that it disappeared in 1944 and has never been seen since. Until tonight.”

I could hear the men in the courtyard murmuring and looking around. Eidhalt continued, “I would like to introduce to you Mr. Jedediah Thom, from the United States. It was he who tracked down the
Blutfahne
.” He paused and lowered his voice. “How do we know it's the real one? Because we have now authenticated it with the DNA of one of the men who died on it during the beer hall
putsch
in 1923! We dug up his grave! We have the Blood Flag! It is authentic and we have it here
tonight
!”

Spontaneous applause thundered through the courtyard, with cheers pushing the clapping ever higher. Even Eidhalt's men who lined the balcony above and below burst into applause. They were unaware of the flag's presence. The energy generated from Hitler's speeches had just been ignited. The applause built to a roar. I had to hand it to Eidhalt. He had watched enough of Hitler's ways to know how to motivate people, and how to stimulate them. Eidhalt raised his hand to quiet the men. They stopped. He said, “The Blood Flag is with me on the balcony. Right now, as we speak. I know you want to see it. And I want to show it to you. It will be the focus of what we do.” He held up his hand. “But not yet. You'll see it tonight, I promise, but not yet, and—not here. This, this is simply our first stop tonight. I suspect that we're being watched. It may even be that some of you have alerted the authorities to what is happening tonight. I don't think so, and I hope not, but I prepare for everything. We all need to take security precautions. There are those who hate our movement and will hate us. The government of Germany hates its own past and history, even if the people might rise in favor of it. But that will not stop us. Because tonight the Fourth Reich begins! So we will bring the
Blutfahne
with us.
Achtung
!”

The men all came to attention immediately, as another song came over the loud speakers. I recognized it. It was the “Horst Wessel Song.” The rallying song for the Nazis in the forties. As the music grew louder, I noticed a sound that I'd not heard before. Turbine engines. Flood lights flashed on and illuminated the buildings and the grassy area far from the courtyard. As I looked at the barns and the light I could see that the buildings were artificial. Men in black uniforms ran to the sides of the barns, pulled on levers or chords and the walls of the barns fell to the ground. Behind the fake walls were three large black helicopters. They were starting their engines and the rotors were starting to turn.

Eidhalt yelled through the microphone, “Men of the Fourth Reich! Join me in my helicopters for a journey. A journey to the past and the future!”

The assembly broke up and was directed to the helicopters by Eidhalt's men. We followed. Jedediah and I headed for the first helicopter, a large Super Puma. It held about twenty and it filled up quickly. Jedediah and I sat in the front row on the outside by one of the portholes. Jedediah looked at me with a little bit of concern in his eyes. He spoke loud enough to be heard over the whining jet engines. “Where the hell are we going?”

“No idea.”

“So what's the plan?”

“Well, my former plan is now out the window. Sort of like war, as soon as the fighting starts the plans go to shit.”

“How are our friends going to track us?”

“I still have another cell. Only Alex has the number, and it's on, in my sock. They'll be able to track us for a while, and know we've left.”

“Hope it works,” Jedediah said.

Our helicopter was the first to go to full power. I felt the blades take the weight of the helicopter and lift us off the ground into the night. We leveled off quickly at a very low altitude, climbed over the wall and turned away from the castle, flying fast. I was disoriented and couldn't tell which direction we were headed. I could make out the lighted castle through the small window. We might be heading south to Berchtesgaden, Hitler's old headquarters. I was sure we were off to some historic Nazi location.

We settled in for the ride, which was aggressive and rough. We turned frequently but I couldn't tell if it was to avoid things or simply to be unpredictable in our flight path. We flew fast along the ground, maybe at a hundred feet. I was sure all their transponder radar gear was off and the Germans would have to find them by raw radar hits, which was unlikely at this altitude. Jedediah and I settled in for the journey, however long it was going to be. It turned out to be two and a half hours, always low, always fast, always in complete darkness. And flying in formation with two other helicopters that we could see next to us. There were no anti-collision lights—another violation of aviation rules—but enough exterior lighting that the other helicopters could be seen by the pilots. Finally we slowed, then came to a hover. The helicopters spread out, and we all descended slowly. I strained to see below us and could see the glow of lighting, but couldn't see the ground. We went into a circling pattern and I could see there were three illuminated targets on the ground. A large white center with a second large white ring on the outside.

We settled and the weight came off the blades. The engines began to quiet, and slowly the blades stopped turning. The doors opened and we were ushered out. We stood and stretched. We stood in an empty field apparently in the middle of nowhere.

There were circles painted in the grass under each helicopter illuminated by a circle of small spotlights that were outside the rotor arc of each helicopter. I could see that they were buried and anchored into the ground. The pilot got out of the helicopter and came over to the group of men we were standing with. “Won't be long. We are only here to refuel.”

“Where exactly are we?” one asked.

The pilot just smiled and walked toward one of the three fuel trucks that drove slowly out of the woods and directly to each helicopter. The driver jumped out near our helicopter. He hooked a grounding clip to a steel point on the nose wheel of the aircraft then attached the single-point refueling hose. He rushed back to the truck and turned on the pump. We could hear the jet fuel rushing through the hose. Each of the other helicopters was being refueled equally quickly.

As the driver of the truck detached the hose, the pilot said, “Everybody back into the helicopter. Off we go.”

The same one as before asked, “Where are we going?”

“It's just for me to get you there.”

“Well, what direction are we heading?”

“We're heading in the direction I've been told to take you. Now please, get back into the helicopter. Although I suppose if you don't want to, we can leave you here. But with you or without you, we're leaving. So please, get on board.”

Most complied quickly and lined up to get back to the seats they had just departed. I took one last glance around the field and saw nothing other than the people who were with us or who had come to refuel us. It was an extremely remote spot and the lights for the landing areas had already been turned out. There were just dark helicopters sitting in a dark field, with the engines now starting to turn.

We flew for another long stretch and landed in another field and refueled. I tried to remember the range of this helicopter. It was probably two to three hundred miles. We were going a long way, but since all our flying was in the complete darkness and there was no moon, I couldn't get my bearings with the stars. I had no idea what direction we were flying. It wasn't getting warmer, and we hadn't hit an ocean. So my guess was we were going east. Why we would be going east was beyond me. I, like the others, was along for the ride, hoping I'd have the wits to make all this come out right. But now I had no backup at all. No army of BKA to storm the meeting and arrest everyone. The last thing I wanted was to create the perfect meeting for all the world's Nazis and let them go back to their countries with the new weaponized version of the Nazi virus.

Finally, at what must have been two o'clock in the morning, the helicopter slowed and began descending. We settled to the ground, the engines spooled down, and the blades came to a stop. We were ushered out. I looked around quickly. A field surrounded by woods with nothing else visible except for three waiting buses. This entire thing had been planned with remarkable attention to detail.

We boarded the buses, which drove slowly over the uneven field until we reached a smooth dirt road. After a few hundred yards we rounded a corner and turned onto a paved road. We drove for about a mile. I could make out lights and vague shapes in the darkness. I was sitting in the front seat with Jedediah, with the driver slightly below us and to our left.

I could make out fences and dark, thick shapes. But the shapes were in odd formations that looked overgrown or disassembled or built into the sides of hills. As we got closer I could see the lights more clearly. There were spotlights and floodlights with other general lighting. The spotlights were illuminating something I could not yet make out. We drove through a fence and a gate into what appeared to be a compound.

It suddenly struck me where we were. The Wolfsschanze. The Wolf's Lair. Hitler's eastern headquarters in the forests of eastern Prussia, present-day Poland, where he conducted the war against Russia that he launched in 1941. Operation Barbarossa. Hitler often referred to himself as Wolf, or The Wolf. He saw it as a reflection of his destined greatness, based on the old High German combination of words Adal and Wolf, that led to the name Adolph. Noble Wolf.

The Wolf's Lair was mythical. It was where Hitler spent hundreds of days from the summer of 1941 until it was overrun by the Russians. It's where Hitler spent most of his time at the height of his power. It was where he planned the destruction of Russia that would give Germany access to the natural resources necessary to feed the German economy and arsenal, and where he would resettle German soldiers after the war and achieve the
lebensraum
, the living room, that Germany needed.

As our buses pulled up, men dressed in the now recognizable Eidhalt Nazi uniforms opened the large gates to the fence surrounding the Wolf's Lair and directed us into the compound. I could see massive chunks of stone and concrete as big as houses that used to make up the impressive bunkers of the Wolf's Lair. As we made our way deeper into the compound, I saw more men dressed in Nazi uniforms. It was like a flashback to the forties, except all of the vehicles were modern, as were the weapons. Mostly AK-47s, and some I didn't recognize. It was a heavily armed compound. How did these men even get here? How did they take over the Wolf's Lair? I didn't even know it was still standing. I had assumed, like most of Hitler's places, it had been torn down and ripped apart to avoid this very kind of thing. The Wolf's Lair was probably so well constructed that it didn't justify the amount of dynamite necessary to destroy it. It looked like most of the buildings had been destroyed, but not the massive bunkers. The forest had grown right up to the edge of the Wolf's Lair and it gave it a concealed feeling. Even at the peak of it's use, the Wolf's Lair was considered to be in the middle of nowhere, even by Hitler. He said of all the places for the generals to pick to place his headquarters, they had picked the most out of the way, near nothing, mosquito-infested swamp they could find.

And what better place to start a new war? And of course, it was here that Hitler had shown his immortality. It was here in 1944 that Operation Valkyrie came to a head and colonel Von Stauffenberg placed a bomb under the table where Hitler stood during a meeting in one of the non-concrete bunkers. The bomb blew up, killing four and injuring Hitler, but not killing him.

The buses stopped and we were escorted to a central area. Eidhalt welcomed us and directed us toward a low-lying building. It was part of a small hotel that was run on site by a Polish couple. We filed into the building. The couple sat bound and gagged in the corner with their eyes wide open. The room was a small café. The sixty of us crowded in, standing around not quite sure what to do. There were sandwiches and coffee waiting, and small pastries. We'd been traveling for hours and were famished, so most made for the tables with the trays of food. Some went straight to the coffee in an attempt to load up on caffeine.

The room was smartly decorated with modern tables and chairs that you might see in a new European café, with industrial carpet all over the concrete floor. The walls were painted a pale yellow and there were several inexpensive photograph replicas framed on the walls with recognizable European scenes.

I stole another glance at the couple in the corner. The contrast between the laughing men fresh out of the helicopters in their SS uniforms, the common Nazi soldiers with their Nazi helmets, and the couple bound and gagged in the corner was stark. Some sat at the tables and some stood eating sandwiches and conversing. Eidhalt walked over to Jedediah and me. “I trust your travels were comfortable.”

“I didn't expect to be here tonight,” I replied.

Eidhalt smiled, proud of himself. “I doubt anyone did. I bet most didn't even know this place was still accessible. They tried to destroy most of Hitler's places, but this one was indestructible. Surprisingly it is a minor tourist spot, but it is out of the way. Nobody comes here. Which makes it perfect for our purposes. I think you will enjoy tonight's festivities, and I look forward to unveiling
die Blutfahne
.” He looked at his watch. “We begin in twenty minutes. I will want you with me at the back of the stage.”

“Stage?”

“Yes. I have had a platform erected on top of the highest bunker. We will be flooded with light and speak through the most powerful PA system in Poland. The power of the Reich will begin again tonight.”

Jedediah and I sipped coffee as Eidhalt walked to others and conversed briefly with them, making sure he knew each person by name and their country now that each was in an SS officer's uniform. I had to note that the uniforms, just like in World War II, were incredibly impressive. They were probably the best looking and most intimidating uniforms ever designed. I realized I was wearing Hugo Boss shoes; the same designer who made many of the SS uniforms in the thirties and forties.

A man approached us in one of the SS uniforms and said quietly, “He would like you to come with me now, to the back of the stage.”

We followed him around to the back. As we walked toward one end of the compound, I saw the stage. It was a large wooden structure erected on top of one of the intact bunkers, an arc of impenetrable concrete overgrown with vines. Massive speaker stands stood beside it, both at the level of the stage and at the ground where we now walked. There was a large screen at the back of the stage and lower down on both sides of the bunker. There were long red Nazi banners hanging next to the screens. Lights illuminated the banners, the bunkers, and the people.

We walked around beside the bunker to the stairs that had been built up to the top. We headed up the stairs. Eidhalt was waiting for us at the top, as were several other men I didn't recall seeing before. Eidhalt turned to me, “So what do you think? Good setting?”

“Stunning,” I said. “Well done. No better place to reveal
die Blutfahne.
”

He grinned. “
Danke
. And we have some other surprises in store for tonight. This is the beginning!” He looked at his watch. “Five minutes. Prepare the flag. Take it out. I have prepared the perfect standard for it. It is identical to the one used by Hessler the last time the flag was seen.”

Jedediah opened the case and pulled out the Blood Flag. Jedediah went to push the case aside, and realized it was still heavy. He looked up at me with a knowing glance, which I returned without expression. He moved the case carefully aside where it wouldn't be kicked or moved. We carefully unfolded the flag and put it on the standard with a Nazi Eagle on top of the wooden pole. Jedediah leaned the flag over on the pole to me while he adjusted his tight SS tank top. His tattoos and the iron cross on his throat made him the perfect Aryan.

We followed Eidhalt up the stairs to a platform that was elevated above the main platform and out of sight. In the center, directly underneath the screen, was a wide series of steps with railings that led down onto the stage. It was made for a dramatic entrance as everyone emerged below the screen into the spotlights. You could also see through the screen to the crowd beyond. Others had assembled for the ceremonies. In the darkness the spotlights cast eerie moving shadows on the trees.

Suddenly, the lights on the stage went up to full bright and music blared over the massive PA system. The German National Anthem again, then the “Horst Wessel Song.” Then silence. Finally Eidhalt, with two of his men on either side, marched down the stairs and out into the center of the stage in front of the microphone. There were high-definition cameras on stage and in front of the stage taping everything.

He stood at the microphone looking out over the group of newly dressed SS officers and his numerous Nazi soldiers that surrounded all of them. There had to be two hundred men, maybe three hundred. All dressed in black. All illuminated indirectly by the spotlights that highlighted the banners climbing to the sky and the Nazi emblems everywhere. Eidhalt spoke, “Fall in!”

No one knew what to do, but the Nazi soldiers guided them. Each line on the right was designated and one man was told to stand there at attention. Others fell into each person's left, forming eight or so lines deep. They were all at attention.

Eidhalt yelled, “Dress right, dress!”

Some who had been in the service knew what was meant and extended their left arms out while looking to their right to make sure they were lined up to the person to their right. The others copied and the lines quickly formed in perfect symmetry.

“Ready front!”

They dropped their left hands and turned their heads toward the front, toward him.

Eidhalt paused, looked around, and yelled, “
Sieg
—”

They all got it. “
Heil
!”

As soon as he said
Sieg
he raised his hand to the middle of his chest and when they said
Heil
, he extended his arm fully with his hand out flat in front of him in the traditional Nazi salute.

“
Sieg.
”

“
Heil
!”

“
Sieg
.”

“
Heil
!”

It was a chilling sight. The international leaders of the neo-Nazis were relishing their chance to play Nazi. The soldiers behind them and around them and behind the stage and in the woods all matched the Nazi salute.

Eidhalt spoke, “The Fourth Reich begins tonight! We have waited for this moment. The whole world waits for this moment. Those who now follow us wait, and those who live in fear and frustration and anger, wait. Those who can't identify the source of their discomfort, wait. Those who have fought against oppression their whole lives, wait. And they all wait for
us
. They wait for vision, leadership, energy, determination, and justice! The things we bring!” The world Nazi leaders burst into thunderous applause. There had been hesitation on whether they were bound to stand silently like soldiers at a lecture, but that was gone. They could not contain their enthusiasm and energy. I could see him looking toward us. He had a strong powerful voice. He had watched enough Hitler videos. He knew how to pause. He knew how to raise his voice in anger and yet subside in humility. He was powerful, and would be a powerful adversary.

“Why now? Why us? Because the time has come and we have waited long enough. Events have come together. What events? Many of us are from Europe, and Europe is on the verge of collapse. They made the foolhardy decision to make one currency! They allowed the drunkards from Greece and Spain and Italy to have the same borrowing power as the great Germany. They will pull us all down and we will all drown in the miscreated ‘European Union.' The currency will collapse, and it will be like Germany in the thirties! Money will have no value, governments will be in a panic, and people will look for answers. That time is nearly upon us. One year, maybe two. We will be prepared.

“But more importantly, people have now understood what we have understood. The only way forward is
security
. The curse of progress is mongrel immigration.

“But what about the Jews? The scourge of the thirties, the scourge of history. The Jews are easy, we need not concentrate on the Jews. They will always be there. We can always go after the Jews. People are not focused on them like they were at one point. Today's Jew? Today's Jew? Today's Jew is the
Muslim
!

“It is Islam that is Satan's hand, ruining the world. It is Islam that has tried in the past to take over Europe militarily, and is now taking over all of our countries and most of yours by immigration, forced imposition of sharia law, and terrorism! Our governments do nothing! They cower and cry ‘multiculturalism!' They quiver and shake under the pointed finger of the Imams, who stand behind political correctness to keep us from even
criticizing
Islam. It makes Jewish Bolshevism child's play. Islam demands spiritual allegiance. Islam demands obedience at the point of a sword. Islam takes over countries and eliminates all other religions and ways of thinking. Islam determines what is right and wrong for itself. Lying for Islam is acceptable.