8.11.1923 – 20:31 – Bürgerbräukeller – München, Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Now, I know little of our different political parties and armies, but this self-proclaimed Nazi party leader seems to know quite a lot about all of that.
In he marched, followed by a few other men wearing a strange symbol on their sleeves, only a moment ago. He now stands on a chair, wielding a gun. A shot rings out and the wooden ceiling above him splinters with the force of the bullet.
“The national revolution has broken out!” he shouts, cocking his gun again. “The hall is filled with six hundred men. Nobody is allowed to leave. The Bavarian governments and the government at Berlin are deposed. A new government will be formed at once. The barracks of the Reichswehr and those of the police are occupied. Both have rallied to the swastika.”
I know not of this man or what he stands for. All I can take from this is that the symbol he is wearing is called a “swastika.”
Forcing them at gunpoint, he and three other men lead away von Kahr, von Seisser, and von Lossow, the Bavarian speakers of the conference. When they are out of the auditorium, I glance about the crowd to see that we, too, are being held at gunpoint.
A political uprising?
Taking the place of the Bavarian speakers is one who introduces himself as Hermann Göring. He stands at the podium and assures us that the “Nazis” mean no harm; that their goal is to alleviate Germany of all political and ethical wrongs.
The crowd falls deathly silent when the man produces a pistol from beneath his coat, waving it haphazardly as he speaks. “Do you see this gun? The guns around you? The Nationalsozialstiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei hopes that, given time, no guns or force will be needed to captivate the people of Germany. Soon you shall see how we see, and you will come to ours terms willingly.”
He tucks the gun away again and some of the crowd lets out a collective sigh of relief.
“No one is to leave for any reason. The Sturmabteilung members posted around you have been instructed to shoot and kill anyone who tries to escape, even though such drastic measures should not be necessary.”
Outside the beer hall, I can hear shots being fired. Others pick up on it, and a ripple of panic flares out over the masses.
“On the streets, more of our people have convinced the police barracks to convert to our ways. Our leader is persuading the Bavarian government as we speak. What you hear outside is the fall of the opposition—but there is no need to be worried.” Göring tries to soothe the panic, to no avail.
Their leader emerges from the side door and makes his way through the audience under heavy guard.
He speaks to us with self-confidence coming off of him in waves. He is calm and collected, almost relaxed on the stage, speaking to us as if we are already his citizens. His reassurance to us of peace and the absence of maliciousness sets the crowd at ease, and they lapse into contemplative silence, no longer frightened.
“Outside are Kahr, Lossow, and Seisser. They are struggling hard to reach a decision. May I say to them that you will stand behind them?” The leader questions us, bringing our governmental faith into light.
Looking out on the audience with hypnotic blue eyes, he salutes us, sending the majority of the people around me into fits of approval.
“You can see that what motivates us is neither self-conceit or self-interest, only a burning desire to join the battle in this grave eleventh hour for our Fatherland.” The man clears his throat with a regal aire about him, “There is one last thing I can tell you. Either the German revolution begins tonight and the morrow will find us in Germany a true nationalist government, or it will find us dead by dawn.”
He finishes with triumph over any doubts that the audience might have had earlier, and they cheer him off the stage.
I, on the other hand, am not quite sure.


9.11.1923 – 18:00 – Home – München, Deutschland

The news networks are practically eating out of the NSDAP’s hands.
The shooting apparently took place outside the Odeonsplatz, killing four police officers and sixteen Nazis. Now I find myself wringing my hands nervously and searching for things to keep me busy; my fears for my lover are overwhelming. Was he shot? Killed? Oh, god…
Most of us who were held hostage in the Bürgerbräukeller, including myself, were given release from work to recover from the stress and shock of “such violence.” To keep my mind off of the brawl at Odeonsplatz, I have been brewing a lentil stew all day while listening to the radio for any reports on who was killed.
Apparently, the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, was wounded and captured, while his speaker, Göring, escaped.
The front door opens with its signature creak that I’ve been meaning to fix, and my partner finds his way to the kitchen, to my relief. Hugging me close, he shuts off the radio, and the room falls silent as we each bask in the light of still being alive.
Reveling in his warmth, I break the silence, “What happened with the shooting last night? Why didn’t you come home?”
Sighing, he buries his face in my long hair. “A couple were wounded, so I stayed to make sure they made it through ok. We were understaffed afterwards, so I volunteered to work today, despite the city-wide stress-day-off.”
“Just… don’t do that again. You had me so scared, leaving me to wonder if you were lying dead on the Felderrnhalle steps…”
“I promise.”


11.11.1923 – 12:30 – Kaffeehaus – München, Deutschland

The café is more lively than normal, even for the midday meal.
The newspaper prints were delayed earlier this morning so that a new title page could be included, and it quickly became the hot topic of the week.
“NSDAP LEADER, ARRESTED FOR TREASON”
The people here seem to have forgotten the Odeonsplatz incident already, for when Reinhardt and a few other naval officers walk into the Kaffeehaus, no one spares them more than a sideways glance.
Sitting across from me at the table, Reinhardt reaches out and takes my hands in his, rubbing his thumbs over my musician’s fingers. “How was the morning practice?”
It’s a relief to me that, here in Germany, we can be together without fear of persecution. Most other European states—England, Scotland, Wales, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Austria—frown upon public displays of homosexualität; sometimes other men avoid us like the plague.
I hope this way of life does not soon end.


18.4.1931 – 18:30 – Home – München, Deutschland

I knew that this would happen-- the armies are growing. I had begged Reinhardt constantly to leave the naval force and join me as a musician so he could better avoid being enlisted into full-time service, but he would not relent.
Only a few days ago, he did not come home.
He called me that night to tell me, and ended the call with the exclamation “Schutz-Staffel Heil!” Even though this put me off, I said nothing to him.
Since then I have waited for him to come home for dinner every evening. For this very reason I never fixed that creaking that the front door makes—I want to hear him when he comes home.
I must admit, as much as I want him to return to me, I am afraid of what he will be. If he comes to me for an embrace with that red-banded swastika on his arm, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’m not sure if I could kiss the lips of a Nazi.


4.9.1933 – 9:00 – Home – München, Deutschland

Reinhardt attended the orchestra’s opening performance last night and came home with me. Even though it was late, we sat down to an impromptu pasta dinner and then spent the rest of the night together; me crying in his arms about where he’s been for the last two years.
He left early this morning before I would normally wake up. When the eight o’ clock sun shone in through my window, effectively waking me, I could feel the tingle of his lips on mine and knew that he was gone.
In the kitchen he left a warm pot of coffee and a golden swastika pin for me. The coffee is perfect, just like he used to make it, but the pin frightens me. I can’t even muster the courage to pick it up.
I lack the knowledge of what the Nazi party stands for and against—what Hitler stands for. Now that I have a day off in between performances, I will delve into the basis of our new government to find just what ethics they have.
Relenting, for now, to the unknown, and accepting the swastika as a piece of Reinhardt to remember him by when he is gone, I pick the pin up and hold it over my heart.
With no promise of when he will next come home, I can feel the pin filling in a corner of the void in my soul. “Until I see you again, Reinhardt Heydrich—until we are reunited in love—I will remember you, and cherish this swastika.”


11.11.1938 – 18:00 – Home – München, Deutschland

Such terrible destruction. If Germany hasn’t yet lost its faith in its people, and in Adolf Hitler, now would be the time to do so.
Reports are coming in from all over Germany about massive uprisings against Jewish people and businesses over the last two days. Even here in München, windows have been smashed, people have been killed, Jews have been carted off to Konzentrationslager, and synagogues have been burned.
I thank Heydrich profusely in silence for the swastika pin that he gave me. Tonight Nazis decided to patrol my apartment building, looking for Jewish families. They came to my door, and I hastily adorned myself with the pin. When I opened the door, they looked me over once, saluted, and exclaimed “Heil Hitler!” before marching off to resume their search.
Outside I can see the desolation of the streets below and just how many people have sought refuge in their homes. Even I refused to leave for work yesterday, desperate to avoid the hell on the streets.
The radio spouts its praise for the Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels, since he called for a halt in the hate crimes. What bothers me is what they overlooked— what he said on the matter in Berlin; “The German people are anti-Semitic. It has no desire to have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race.”


5.6.1940 – 22:00 – Dachau Concentration Camp, Dachau, Deutschland

No one can ever truly understand the horror of the Nazi concentration camps until they’ve been held in one.
I was publicly accused of being homosexual at the Kaffeehaus by one of my closest friends. Without a trial or say on my part, I was brought here to Dachau.
The pink triangle that I am forced to wear labels me as an outcast. I have been beaten by my fellow prisoners and guards alike, and I have not been shown mercy by anyone except others of “my kind.”
Out of all the things I miss from my free life, I miss Reinhardt. He would visit me every two months or so and spend the night with me, making sure that I knew how much he loved me.
Even though I miss Reinhardt, my feelings are mixed. The Nazis are against homosexuals; what does that mean for Reinhardt? Has he been lying to me all these years?
No… Reinhardt would never betray me that way!
I have made my head spin and my stomach churn. I’m afraid I must refrain from writing for now—I cannot be sick for my nightwork. The NSDAP seems to be very good at giving homosexuals the most grueling, death defying work.


6.6.1940 – 15:00 – Home – München, Deutschland

His blood is on my hands. I have killed my sweet Sekora.
Last night, while checking up on the guards at Dachau Concentration Camp, I was caught up in a friendly bet. One of the senior guards bet me five marks that I couldn’t shoot a Jew in the dark from there on the battlements.
Being slightly intoxicated, my slow mind automatically accepted the challenge. I took one of the guards’ rifles, made aim on a hatless black figure, and fired.
The others were ecstatic, and desperately wanted to go find the kike and kick him to death while he was down. Following eagerly, I watched them turn the man over to gain access to his face.
The pink triangle on the front of his shirt stood out in the dark, and I immediately felt sick. The others cheered and gave me “extra points” for getting a homosexual.
I feigned a grin at them, but then I saw the man’s shoulder-length blonde hair and bright blue eyes staring up at the starry sky with fear of death in their depths.
He recognized me and I watched as sorrow marred his beautiful features.
“Go, now!” I shouted at the guards, and they ran without hesitation.
Sekora flinched when I reached out to stroke his cheek, but I silenced any objections that he had with a tender kiss.
When I drew back, I looked for the gunshot wound. Blood seeped from a sharp tear in his thigh; the bullet had caught an artery.
He was so pale, and the bleeding was so heavy; he died quickly, breathing his last in my arms.
Although I knew I held a corpse, I kissed his lips in hope that, by some miracle, he would return my love.


17.6.1942 – 15:00 – SS Barracks – Berlin, Deutschland

I am afraid that Reichssicherheitshauptamt Reinhardt Heydrich has not survived his political visit to Prague.
I found this diary, belonging to Sekora Abendroth, in his possessions. After reading through the majority of seventeen years worth of diary entries, I have decided to conclude it myself, for both of their sakes.
My name is Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, head of the Nazi police—Führer Hitler’s right hand man.
Heydrich was caught in an explosion administered by a Slovakian assassin upon crossing the Czechoslovakian border, rendering him mortally wounded and later pulling him into a coma. He remained this way for two days before he was declared dead.
The Nazi regime is now at its full height, partially in thanks to the catastrophe that was Heydrich’s death. In retaliation, I have had 13,000 people detained in concentration camps, 1,300 of which are already dead.


23.5.1945 – 9:00 – Hitler’s Barracks – Berlin, Deutschland

The Nazis have fallen from grace. Hitler and Goebbels are dead and our concentration camps have been liberated.
I write this in Abendroth’s diary because I currently have no access to any other materials or means to write, and I can only hope this journal of our reign will come to light gloriously one day. I write this now because I plan to die later this evening.
Ever since the Röhm Putsch and the Night of the Long Knives, I could tell that Hitler was weakening. Driven to desperate measures by the threats of hypocrisy in the SS and SA alike, he resorted to killing those who posed the worst promise.
Four years later was Kristallnacht, the destruction of Jewish properties and communities, and the people of Germany first experienced true fear for their wellbeing. Even that was a desperate move by a political official, Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels, this time to arouse favor in Hitler once more.
All was silent for quite a while, except for the exponential growth of the concentration camps, until Heydrich died, and I made a move on the public to retaliate for the loss of such a great and fearless man.
Not a year later, the Jews launched a counter-attack on my SS troops in Warsaw, and were not so easily crushed, prompting more spending on and enlisting in the police forces.
But in the twenty-four hours following the night of April 30th, 1945, Germany witnessed the deaths of two great Führers. Hitler wrote his Last Will and Testament with all of the SS present, and Goebbels stood by with great sorrow in his eyes. When news reached Joseph of Adolf’s suicide, he arranged the murders of his children and killed his wife and himself at midday.
And on May 7th, 1945, I was forced to surrender Germany after we were invaded by the Allied Forces from Russia and Normandy. With Hitler and Goebbels gone, what more could I have done?
Now, I plan to die. Before I am placed in court for my many charges, I will take potassium cyanide. I hope that, by following in Adolf and Joseph’s examples in death, I can follow their names in history as Germany’s greatest Reichsführer to ever live.