Carl vs. The Nazis Ch. 11 Adolf Returns

"Carl vs. the Nazis Ch. 10 Busted" 
Adolf Returns

“What is that?” shouted chief Hoggleton. They’ve found us and they’re digging a tunnel! Men, get your weapons!”
Nazis scrambled away from the table and aimed their rifles toward the wall. Two soldiers tripped each other, and one accidentally shot a third man in the foot. The noise seemed to come from each side of the wall at once. They didn’t know which way to point their rifles and began pointing at one another.
Then, silence. It lasted for five minutes.
“At ease, men!” called Hoggleton. “False alarm. Maybe it was just an animal.” The men relaxed their grips on their rifles and began talking and laughing.
“KA-BLOOM!”
A deafening explosion rocked the room, stunning the men. The wall near the stage burst over, burying the Nazis in front. Nearby chairs and tables were burning.
There was silence again as the men waited, guns pointed toward the hole in the wall.
When the smoke began to clear, the orange glow of the flames revealed the oldest man we had ever seen. He stood wrinkled, thin and defiant in a brown shirt, black tie and a red armband with a black swastika. He was bald, except for a few strands of hair that he brushed from his eyes. He stared at the crowd with withering intensity. The men looked away when their glances met.
“May I please introduce myself. I am Adolph. I am charmed to meet you. You see, I am unarmed. Please put down your weapons.” If I did not know he was Thomas, I would have sworn he was Hitler.
As if they were hypnotized, the men obeyed. They stood in stunned silence as Thomas crossed the room to mount the stage.
“My friends, I have waited patiently many years for you to join me. Together, we will accomplish beautiful things. Say it with me,” he whispered in a frail voice.
“Ein Volk!” he shouted with a thundering intensity that seemed impossible for an old man.
“Ein Volk!” the men shouted hysterically.
“Ein Reich!”
“Ein Reich!” they responded.
“Ein Furher!”
The Nazis went nuts, turning the cheer into a monstrous chant: “Ein Furher! Ein Furher! Ein Furher! Ein Furher!” They threw their steel helmets in the air, which made quite a mess when they landed. In their excitement, they were impervious to pain. When the cheering died down, Damon timidly mounted the stage to welcome him.
“Um . . . It’s great to have you here. But aren’t you supposed to be, um, dead?”
Thomas smiled dangerously at Damon. “Dead? Dead you say?” he responded softly. “Could a dead man do this?”
Thomas knocked Damon to the ground, grabbed him from behind by the collar and belt loop and threw him thirty feet into the audience, knocking over Neo-Nazis like candlepins. The Nazis stood in stunned silence, shocked that a small man had such power, such charisma such . . .
“Will!” shouted Thomas, slamming the podium. “I threw him by force of will! I have eluded my enemies because of will! I have lived this long because of will! And with my will, we shall conquer together!”
The crowd erupted in cheering again.
“I know the stories you have heard! Lies. Big lies. You heard I died in a bunker in Berlin. You heard I shot myself when the communist enemies were fighting above me. You heard I deserted my men with a cowardly suicide while they obeyed my call to fight to the last drop of their sacred Aryan blood. You will see that this thin, snotty, single-ply tissue of lies cannot hold together.”
He stepped back from the microphone and wiped his brow, looking, for a moment, as though he was too overcome with emotion to carry on. Then he stepped to the microphone, trembling and red with anger.
“Who won the Iron Cross for valor twice in The Great War of 1914?” he screamed, shaking his fist.
“You did!” shouted the men.
“Who kept all of his promises to his people?”
“You did!”
“Did I lie to you? Did I die a cowardly death? Did I ever stop dreaming of a bright tomorrow for all our people? Am I even capable of telling you a lie?”
“No!” thundered the crowd. “Live forever Furher!”
“Ah, but I may, but I may,” said Thomas with a gracious smile. “The Russians said they found me dead. If so, where is the body?”
“They lied!” shouted the men.
“Yes, but their lies are no match for my will, our will, the will for all people of our beautiful race. And I never gave up my struggle for you.”
“On the day of my supposed death, I left the bunker and grabbed a machine gun. I drove the Russians back, but one man, even a hero, is not enough. After every other brave German soldier in Berlin was dead or captured, and I was severely wounded and out of ammunition, I sought safety. Not for my sake, but so that you would have a leader. I knew that like King Arthur I would have to find an Avalon: A place to seek shelter and grow strong, so that one day I could rise like a phoenix and free my people.”
“After the war, I disguised myself as an American foot soldier. With the help of kindly, sympathetic Americans, people much like yourselves, I have lived here, in this cave, since the end of the war. I have earned a meager living painting landscapes for tourists and by sneaking out to sell cartoons of people at local fairs. I have waited for this rebirth.”
“We are ready,” roared the Nazis. “Let’s do it!”
Thomas surveyed the crowd and shook his head. “To fulfill my will you will need to become better men.”
“We will!” they shouted together.
“I have lived a long time: over a century. This is due in great part to my unbending will. The same ambition that you see in a tall hemlock tree that thrives and grows in its struggle for sunlight while blocking light from weaker, less worthy weeds. My will permeates every aspect of my life, as it must yours. In order to fulfill my will, I had to be kind to my body. I do not smoke. I do not drink. I do not eat the flesh of other animals. I am a compassionate man.”
“Beginning tonight, your lives will change. Please destroy all tobacco, all alcohol and all flesh. Then, please get some rest.” Thomas walked down from the podium, and stepped back into his hole in the wall.
With the enthusiasm of a women’s temperance group, the men ran to do as they were ordered. Cigarettes and chewing tobacco were collected in plastic trash bags and throw with the meat into a furnace, the beer kegs drained.
Any great leader knows he needs to keep his men busy, and make them feel important. This true whether one manages a department store or leads an army. In the bunker Thomas proved to be a great leader. He hated militarism and was plenty old enough to remember much of the world destroyed in world wars. He was also in a position to harm and humiliate Damon and his Nazis. He didn’t.
Later, he told me that he was just being nice because he did not want the men to rebel while we waited for the other Immortals to come up with a plan. I think he was just kind.
He rose before the men, and washed and shaved. Looking like a shiny new penny, he woke them at five and led them in a German language sing-a-long, and then exercise. In neat rows, they stretched, did push-ups, sit ups, jumping jacks, and running in place. Most of the men were flabby and had a hard time. Thomas exhorted them, but never criticized.
“Wonderful effort, Hans,” he called out to a sweating, red-faced man, struggling to do five modified pushups. “I know it is hard, but your efforts today will someday free our people.”
After a breakfast of oatmeal and eggs, he gave lectures on history, political science, and health. They even had dance lessons, painting, and arts and crafts.
Much of the afternoon was spent on learning music. Enough Nazis could already play to put together a pretty good polka band. The music camp’s instruments were brought down. Everyone had to learn to play something.
“Music is the language of the will, the copy of the will itself,” he called over the Oompahs of the sousaphones. “Hear my musical will, that you may carry it into your hearts in battle.”
Thomas even won the hearts of Damon and Hoggleton. He had them over to his bunker for tea and scones daily while they discussed their plans for world domination.
So that no one would suspect me, Thomas showed me no favoritism. I had to run the dishwasher after every meal, wash the uniforms on laundry day, clean the toilets and sinks, and unplug the clogged drains with a plunger. These jobs guaranteed me privacy, since I stank so bad nobody wanted to talk to me. I did have to shower before serving the tea to Thomas, Damon and Hoggleton during their strategic conferences.

"Carl vs. The Nazis Ch. 12 Logic"