I Sleep in Hitler's Room (37 page)

Why are the bones here? Don’t ask me. Malek, a Polish German in charge of this treasure trove, stands at the entrance door and charges two euros for the pleasure of seeing these human remains. I have a little chat with him.

Isn’t it frightening to see these human bones every day of your life?

“Not at all,” he says. “I’m an archeologist, and I ‘m used to it.”

Doesn’t this sort of exhibition disturb him, constantly reminding him of death?

“Every believer should always think of death!” he preaches to me.

Why?

“If you are a man of no faith, I can’t tell you anything because you’ll never understand.” Period.

When I see these bones, believe you me, I believe anything they tell me about Virgin Ursula. Eleven thousand virgins? Yes, I believe. I’d better, before I see my own bones painted in gold and a German Pole making a bundle of euros from my dead parts.

Eleven thousand virgins. Christian virgins, not the Islamic ones. Samide of Marxloh ain’t coming here. This is no Paradise; this is an awful place, with an awful legend.

Keep on walking through this city and you get to the big synagogue. One of the most beautiful synagogues I have ever seen. Its design uses simplicity in the service of beauty, arches and circles that open to a never-ending end, perhaps into the depth of the soul and of the sacred. I am told by an official here that this synagogue was built by Konrad Adenauer, Paul’s grandpa. Whoever built this, it must have cost millions—at least in today’s money.

When I walk in on a Friday night, I am so taken by the visuals of this place that I neglect for a moment to see that this five-hundred-seat temple is practically empty. It is only when the cantor motions to me that I must cover my head that I start noticing the people, meaning lack of people, in the place. Here is the rabbi, here’s the cantor, and three Russians who work here. That’s it. And me, yes. No more. The afternoon service soon ends and the evening service is about to start. Four tourists come in. The place is filling up, man! I say to myself. Evening service starts and we are, including myself, eleven people. Four tourists, rabbi and cantor, three employees, me, and one “survivor,” as that man is described to me.

At least we have one German, I say to the person next to me.

“He’s no German,” he says; “he’s Russian.”

If you don’t count the tourists and the employees, one person has shown up for the service tonight.

Millions of euros, huge complexes, for one old Russian Jew. If it were up to me I’d put him in the Excelsior Hotel Ernst for life; this would be much, much cheaper.

German Jewry in its past glory was mostly liberal, members of the Reform movement. The German Jews of today, the tenants of hugely expensive but empty Jewish temples and institutions, are mostly Orthodox. Usually imports. The rabbi here is Swiss, the cantor is Israeli.

The spiritual leaders of today’s Jewish communities in Germany are people who didn’t make it in their own hometowns. They’re not good enough for their home countries, but everybody is good enough for the emptiness of Jewish life in Germany.

I can hear the wife of the chief rabbi of Munich whispering in my ears: Didn’t I tell you?

The Jewish community in Germany, in Köln as in the other cities I visited, is one huge graveyard. There may be some signs of life here and there, but these are just ghosts. Dead Men Walking.

In this big building is a memorial to the eleven thousand Köln Jews who perished in World War II.

Eleven thousand virgins. Eleven thousand Jews. Köln loves eleven thousands. Nice number.

Service ends and all eleven people leave the sanctuary. The assistant rabbi and myself walk outside, strolling past gay bars while we are deep in thought, conversation, and other holy activities. The assistant rabbi tells me of a recent problem the Köln Jewish community and temple are faced with. A Köln city official called the synagogue asking for a little favor: A number of Israeli Jews, members of the gay community, are coming soon to Köln for a visit. They told the official they would like to attend a service at the temple, and he wants to know if he could fit this into their schedule.

“You understand now,” says the assistant rabbi to me, “why sometimes it’s better to be the assistant rabbi and not the rabbi? This is a tough question, but I don’t have to answer it, it’s not my responsibility.”

What did the rabbi respond to the official?

“The rabbi asked for time to respond.”

What is he waiting for?

“He will bring this issue to the board and the board will decide.”

Yes. We need huge buildings at the cost of millions, plus imported clergy, to decide if a gay Jew can come to pray.

I think, and you can quote me, that the Jewish community in Köln and the Muslim community in Duisburg, both having such impressive buildings, should unite. Maybe they should form a mutual
Verein
, the Discriminators and Biased Ones Verein GmbH.

Here is a way to finally achieve peace between Jews and Muslims, at least between the religious segments of their populations.

I ask the assistant rabbi what he would do if he were the rabbi.

Personally he thinks it’s not a good idea to let those Jews attend a service.

Why not?

“It would scare the worshippers,” he says, “and they might not come to the temple ever again.”

Worshippers. How did we get the plural here? There is one worshipper, the Survivor. Will it scare that old man?

“Yes,” says the assistant rabbi.

Poor Jew. Isn’t it enough that he experienced the Nazis? The sight of a gay Jew might do him in for good.

Köln.

Continue walking and you come to a museum, a present-day museum, a Köln museum. It’s called, and perhaps you have already guessed it, the Chocolate Museum. Yes: You get to see how chocolate is made, and you get to eat a piece of it too.

Welcome to Köln.

I keep on walking. Beautiful sights and places.
Fußgängerzone
(pedestrian zone), for example. A demonstration is now taking place here. Iranian Germans demonstrate against brutality they claim is committed by the Iranian regime. They have the pictures to prove it. Bloodied heads, and other organs, gifts of the regime to those who don’t obey or who are different. Looking at the pictures, you can’t tell if any of the victims photographed here are alive or dead. Not that it makes much difference. Given the shape these people are in, as seen in these horrific photos, death might be preferable.

I look at the demonstrators and something in them smells wrong, or foreign. I try to figure out why and what. It takes me a few minutes and then I see it: There are no German Germans here. Only Persians. All those Germans who jump to support Palestinian demonstrations against Israel, or Jews, fail to show up here. Even though these Iranians show similarly horrific pictures.

Welcome to Köln. Have a wurst and a beer, and try to forget everything else.

Köln.

Tonight the Kölner Philharmonie is hosting a production of
Porgy and Bess
, the Gershwin opera, performed by the New York Harlem Theater.

Got to have some English in my system! I go to see it.

It’s a sold-out performance, unlike the services in the synagogues.

The opera starts. The stage has so many people on it they can hardly move.

They sing. Supposedly in English, though no human ear can actually attest to it.

Who is this New York Harlem Theater group? Where exactly in Harlem are they located? They don’t have a New York accent. Strange.

Two hours or so later I chance upon the musical director of the group.

Where in Harlem is your theater located? I ask this white man.

Well, to borrow Gershwin’s title song from this very opera, It Ain’t Necessarily So. He’s from Munich. The group’s name, you probably already guessed, is just so: a name. An excellent business idea. Maybe I should adopt it. Next year, if you happen to see the musical
Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex
performed by the Saudi Mecca Theater Company at the Köln Schauspielhaus, don’t tell anybody it’s me.

It’s time to rest in my wonderful suite.

There’s a nice big TV in my suite, I think I should use it.

Helge Schneider was right. I just turn the TV on and whom do I see? Yes, Adolf Hitler. Nice little program. They talk about Hitler’s sexual habits, in case we were interested to know. The learned talking heads discuss Hitler’s relationship with his niece, Geli Raubal. How did Hitler have sex? It’s an important question because it will reveal something extremely important. And here’s the answer: Hitler, surprisingly or not, had a unique sexual desire: to have his beloved urinate on him.

This story, the history books tell us, was told by Otto Strasser in 1943. Most serious historians disregard it as true. Why are we discussing it in 2010? Hitler is still good for ratings.

Other news of the day:

In the Ruhr area there’s another party going on this weekend:
Ruhrschnellweg
. It takes place on the A40. The Autobahn is closed to traffic, twenty thousand tables are arranged on this major highway, and three million people have shown up.

Is this just another variety of
Verein
?

I had such a wonderful time with Paul Adenauer last time we met that I go to visit him again. Maybe he can further educate me.

Why are all those millions of Germans pouring into the streets to see –basically nothing?

“They love to be together.”

That’s it? Just looking for an excuse to be together, with as many other Germans as possible?

“Yes. We say: If you scratch a German long enough, a socialist comes out.”

I heard that one quite some time ago. With one little modification: Instead of “socialist” they used the word “Nazi.” If you scratch a German long enough—

“Perhaps it’s the same thing. There’s ‘something’ inside.”

What is it?

“A sense of ‘We belong together.’ Members of the tribe. You have to belong to a tribe.”

Is this what Hitler did, using this ‘something,’ and then defining the tribe as ‘Aryan’?

“Yes.”

Does it mean that there’s a significant chance that Nazism would return?

“Yes, but not now.”

Thanks, man! What else is German?

“German faithfulness. It’s important to be faithful.”

Wait a second: These two qualities, loyalty versus the tribal that can turn lethal and barbaric, are opposites—

“Germans’ biggest problem is that they are very romantic, totally romantic. And romanticism is very dangerous. It can be turned into its opposite.”

I mention to Paul this letter that I read years back. It’s from a Nazi warrior to his wife, on the eve of the Christmas holiday. It was a very romantic letter indeed. In it he told her that she should be proud of him. They had a contest in their camp, he told her. They threw little Jewish children in the air and shot them before they fell down. You will be proud of me, he told his beloved, because I won the contest.

Paul is not surprised at all. He “signs” the letter:

“I killed many Jews,
Schatzi
[Honey]. Greetings to the dog.”

He adds: “The German soul still has a
Nibelungentreue
[unquestioning loyalty unto death]. And this faithfulness is without thinking.”

I ask Paul if he’d had the chance to think about what we had talked about last time, the possibility of Islamic fanaticism coming to Köln and how it should be dealt with.

Yes, he did.

“We, in Germany, will wait to see what other European countries do, like France and others. They have, or will have, the same problem. We’ll let them act first and then we’ll do what they do.”

I learn a lot about Germany and Germans from Paul. If he’s right, I’ve solved my dilemma, the one I had before starting out on this journey. The horrible Nazi past of this country on the one hand and the beautiful, romantic German literature on the other are not really two opposites.

“Germans’ biggest problem is that they are very romantic, totally romantic. And romanticism is very dangerous. It can be turned into its opposite.”

Is he right? Like Sister Jutta-Maria of Munich, I want to look into it more deeply.

Maybe it’s time to go back in history, to see what’s what and how it all originated. Perhaps a little examination of the Dom will be helpful. That’s history, after all, long history. If Rabbi Schmidt taught me anything, it’s this: Check history first!

I go to the Dom to meet Barbara Schock-Werner, the
Dombaumeisterin
(master of cathedral architecture), the first woman in Köln to hold this job. Wilhelm Luxem of the Excelsior, who introduced Paul to me, introduces me to Barbara as well.

“This section,” she says, pointing somewhere outside, “was damaged in World War II.”

I thought that the Allies spared the Dom, didn’t they?

“Most of it. But most of the area next to the Dom was bombed. The British actually wanted to bomb here as well.”

Why?

“Köln Nazis held on until the end.”

Thinking back to what Paul taught me about the nature of the Kölners, I say to her: I thought that Kölners were not into the—