They kicked down the door and came in. They were men from the SS. This may not be the moment for a digression on uniforms (Rainer was about to die) but I can't avoid it. SS uniforms always appeared powerful to me. The brown shirts evoked the fundamentals of the earth, the purity of the fields. On the other hand, the National Socialist was romantic, Martin. He is a child in the day [hijo del dia], but loves the night. An SS dressed in black, with his peaked cap, with that skull that is being-towards-death and the being-to-give-death, with his brilliant boots, his iron crosses and his swastikas is the image of evil. He's Mephistopheles, the spirit that denies everything. He is Nietzsche's superman that, aristocratically, begins with his own affirmation to conclude in the negation of inferiors. Or he's the Hegelian negative. Wouldn't Hegel mock the insipid idea of knowing God as "a game of love with oneself"? Doesn't he demand, of that knowledge, the pain and work of that negative? An SS is pure negativity and negativity is the daughter of the night, because it is the soul of philosophy and philosophy, who doesn't know it, Martin, is nocturnal, it's like the owl of Minerva that takes flight at dusk. It is also like the vampires, and like vampires, so too is the SS. One of them, a lieutenant, approaches Rainer pistol in hand. Rainer walks backwards and leans against the living room wall. Reality tends to surprise me. Behind Rainer there is an imposing portrait of the Führer. They gave it to me at the university and I hung it there in the living room, for all to see. The day I received it Hitler had decreed there was only one party in Germany, the national socialists, and he was its Führer. If ever, Martin, you live in a country governed by a single party and that party, vertical and dogmatic rises to a peak in which is installed a single man, a lone Führer, hang in your living room, son, a portrait of that Führer, large and unavoidable. Like the one that's now behind Rainer, who screams not to kill him, that he's turning himself in, that he surrenders, that he obeys, that he'll confess, he'll tell secrets, he'll put up with prisons and tortures, but he wants to live. I want to live, he shouts faltering, he yells shrilly in an unbefitting way, humiliating, that gets him the disdain of his executioners. The lieutenant, a tall lean pale man, with stark stony cheekbones, says: "Rainer Minder, don't ask me not to carry out my orders. I am a soldier. You are sentenced to die. Like all our enemies tonight. I am Lieutenant Werner Rolfe and I am prepared to execute you. Germany, today, does not take prisoners." He fired point-blank the entire clip of his Luger pistol. Rainer slid down the wall leaving a trail of his blood. If he took long to reach the floor it was because each of Werner Rolfe's bullets screwed him to the wall, retaining him. The Führer's portrait was stained with his blood.

See what this traitor's blood is good for in the end, said Rolfe. To sully this pretty portrait of our Führer with which distinguished Professor Dieter Müller has honored his house.

He reloaded his pistol.

From the floor above came your cry. Werner Rolfe, still putting bullets in his Luger, without looking at me, asked:

What is that, Professor Müller?

I told him it was my little son. Who was upstairs with my wife, in his room.

Is anyone else home?

No, Lieutenant.

You must come with us, Professor Müller. Go up and tell your wife. Tell her too not to be frightened. That you'll return.

Is that certain?

Professor, how can you not trust a man you have just seen kill another so sincerely?

He holstered his pistol. He looked at me wisely.

You don't remember me? We were colleagues in Marburg. We attended the classes of Master Heidegger.

I don't remember.

It doesn't matter. I swear that now you will never forget me.

Labels: The Shadow of Heidegger

¶ 5:34 AM