“Dieter, your father and I will be out for the evening, so I am putting you in charge of looking after your siblings,” Mutti said. She slipped into her coat and examined herself in the mirror mounted in the hallway near the front door.
The children were in the sitting room. Dieter’s younger siblings Paul and Marie were busy at their studies, and Lena was vainly attempting to entertain herself by playing with an unresponsive toddler, Albert. Very unusually, Hans was actually doing his school reading. He looked up from his book and grumbled, “Hey! Why Dieter? Why not me?”
Vati was also by the door, and he answered, “Because we need someone responsible to look after everyone. Dieter, make sure your siblings do their homework and don’t blow up the house.”
“Yes, Father,” Dieter affirmed.
“That’s my boy. How do I look, Love?” Vati asked as he took his turn in front of the short wall mirror. His eyes lingered on the reflection of his slowly receding hairline for a moment.
“Dashing,” Mutti said, and she landed a quick kiss on her husband’s cheek. “Now, behave, everyone.”
With those stern parting words, Vati and Mutti left the house and entered the freezing cold, a draft of which rushed in through the briefly opened doorway. Their silhouettes in the door window quickly disappeared from view.
“Mein Gott, good thing they’re gone. This book was getting on my nerves!” Hans announced, and casually proceeded to throw his book onto the coffee table.
Their parents’ wisdom was demonstrated yet again “ without their supervision, Hans went back to being himself, and Dieter saw the need to intervene.
“What are you doing?” he said to him, almost scandalised. “How can you show such disrespect to the Führer’s Mein Kampf?”
Hans snorted. “Heh, more like ‘Mein Kampf mit der deutschen Sprache.’ Meaning no offence to the Führer, he’s not a very good writer “ have you tried reading this thing from the beginning? It’s so boring it’s painful! The Führer should just stick to making speeches.”
After a pause, Dieter smiled haughtily. “What?” his brother asked slightly annoyed, for he knew that look too well.
“You just find it boring because it talks about things that you’re too dumb to understand.”
Dieter and his older brother were accustomed to lightly insulting each other, and Hans was not the least bit affronted. In fact, that statement was pretty much true.
“Right you are, Dieter. This book doesn’t have any nice legs or skirts, or anything!”
“Why should a book have legs?” Marie asked, now distracted from a homework assignment that involved drawing something “ a skill that neither Dieter nor Hans had developed.
The eldest brother snorted and muttered, “Never mind.” Unhappily, he snatched up the book from the coffee table and made yet another valiant attempt to read, whispering the words aloud to keep his concentration:
“On April 1st, 1924, I began to serve my sentence of detention in the Fortress of Landsberg am Lech, following the verdict of the Munich People's Court of that time…”
Evidently, Hans was still stuck on the first sentence.
“Dieter, can you help me with this?” his younger brother Paul asked. Not wanting to watch his older brother try (and fail) to read, he obliged and asked what he could do.
“I don’t understand this question “ this one here,” he explained while pointing to his paper.
Dieter read question number three, muttering it aloud: “‘There is a rabbit in a meadow, and it is unexpectedly ambushed and eaten by a fox. How is this a metaphor for the struggle of the world’s races and nations?' Okay, Paul “ first of all, do you know what a metaphor is?”
“Not really,” he answered truthfully, so Dieter had to explain.
Twice.
“So Paul, what comparisons can you draw on the real world with this example from nature?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t just say, ‘I don’t know,’ Paul. You’ll get marked down for that!”
“I guess I’ll just have to,” his younger brother replied. “This question makes no sense. Rabbits are rabbits. Foxes are foxes. What does that have to do with human beings, let alone countries?”
“Everything,” Dieter said solidly, causing Paul to sceptically raise his eyebrows. “Let’s start with the easy part. Of all of these animals, which one is superior? Which one’s the strongest?”
With absolutely no hesitation, Paul’s eyes seemed to glow as he enthusiastically responded, “The Tyrannosaurus Rex!”
Dieter sighed with exasperation. “That’s not one of the options, Paul“”
“But it should be! The T-rex is the biggest predator in the world “ six tonnes of bone crushing muscle! Teeth the size of daggers “ they’re a lot stronger than some stupid foxes!”
“Not anymore,” Dieter said, irked. “Remember, the dinosaurs are extinct, and there’s a reason for that. They were big, stupid lizards, and mammals are superior creatures. Now let’s get back to foxes and rabbits…”
With great reluctance, Paul eventually conceded defeat and listened to the lecture. Rabbits were herbivores and were stupid. Foxes were carnivores. They were strong and cunning, and ate weaker animals like rabbits.
“So, obviously the fox is the superior animal, right?” Dieter asked, and Paul nodded. “Now, take what we’ve learned from nature about rabbits and foxes and apply it to our world.”
Paul thought for a moment before saying experimentally, “So… countries are like animals, and only the strongest survive?”
Dieter smiled. “Exactly,” he said. He explained that countries and races could not afford to be stupid and lazy like a rabbit. Germany had to be a fox in order to survive, or face the same fate as that rabbit. Paul quickly thanked Dieter and scribbled down the correct answer.
The next hour or two passed uneventfully for the Heydrich children. Hans had only progressed about five pages into Mein Kampf, having read the same sentences over and over again without realising it. Dieter worked on his homework and was periodically interrupted, yet he eventually managed to finish despite assisting his confused younger siblings with their work and restraining Lena from climbing the furniture, as there were no trees in the house.
But once everyone’s scholarly obligations were fulfilled (except for Hans, who was still struggling with the fourth page of Mein Kampf, and Albert who was too young to go to school), Dieter was faced with the knotty problem of distracting his charges. With reckless, five-year old abandon, Lena was back to attempting to conquer the bookshelf’s towering summit.
“Lena! How many times do I have to tell you not to do that?” he scolded as he pried her off again.
“But I’m BORED!” she screamed. She was always bored, and unfortunately, the only thing she found entertaining was running around and climbing things, neither of which were very good hobbies inside the house.
Dieter suddenly had an idea “ it was so obvious. He briefly scanned the bookshelf his youngest sister had been climbing moments before, and found it.
“Story time!” he announced, holding up the first book of the Sky Captain Otto von Von series, with the title in white and framed within the silhouette of a Zeppelin. On the cover was an African savannah full of wild animals with a snow-capped mountain in the distance. In the foreground was a man in Safari khakis and holding a large, bright, clear stone to his chest; behind him in the shadows was a dark figure with claw-like hands grasping from behind the brush. The books were a bit below Dieter’s current reading level (many pages had pictures), but he liked them anyway and they were his favourite reading when he was younger.
“Really. Story time?” Paul asked, acting as mature as an eight year old could.
“Yes. Any problems with it?” Dieter said, pointing at their younger siblings who were watching expectantly, though less so for Lena.
Paul didn’t answer. He had long past the stage when stories were read to him and knew he was perfectly capable of reading for himself, but he shuddered at the prospect of being read stories like some little child. Sometimes, Paul tried to hard to act his age.
“So, on to Sky Captain Otto von Von and the Kaiser’s Stone…” Dieter said, as he opened the book to the first page:
“Before the suffering of 1918 and the later National Socialist rebirth, Germany was a great, prosperous, and respected nation. These were the days of the Second Reich, and German language, culture, and people were to be found in even the most isolated and savage corners of the globe. One such place was the colony of German South West Africa (now occupied by the British puppet nation of South Africa), and this where this story takes place“”
“Dieter, can’t you read that someplace else?” Hans complained, looking up from the third page of Mein Kampf. “That’s very distracting.”
“You can always move,” Dieter answered simply and slightly smugly. He then returned to the book.
Below the chapter title, The Diamond Thief, was a picture of the large, aforementioned stone, and a squat, shadowy silhouette reaching for it with a greedy hand. Dieter showed the illustration to his younger siblings, and continued reading.
“There was a humble prospector name Otto, who emigrated to Africa from the Fatherland to search for gold and precious stones. He panned in the streams for weeks, which turned to months, which turned to years. He had very little luck, and barely scraped by. He thought of his friends and family he had left behind, and with each passing day he came to regret his decision to leave Germany.
But every time he thought of life back in the Reich, reminded himself that the lands of Africa were wild and untouched, and the local people, the Hottentots, were only beginning to be civilised. Africa was an exciting place to be, and Otto could not restrain the childlike excitement that swelled in his chest at the prospect of living in a strange and untamed land.”
Hans gave up trying to read, and he got off his chair and headed upstairs. Once that momentary distraction had passed, Dieter continued:
“Without fail, Otto woke up each morning with the sunrise, and walked to the stream near his shack with his shallow tin pan. Everyday, he’d dip the pan in the water, scoop up the pebbles and silt, and swirl it around. Most days he would find nothing, but today was no ordinary day.
Otto noticed a large, silt-coated lump in his pan. He thought it was just an ordinary rock and prepared to throw it out, but he noticed a faint glimmer, and just in time. Curious, he rubbed the silt off and gasped at the sight of the enormous diamond in his hand, as big as a chicken egg!”
“A chicken egg?” interrupted Paul. “Do diamonds that size even exist?”
“Sure they do,” Dieter answered quickly. “They’re just rare. Now, where was I…?
‘Eureka!’ he cried in excitement“”
Marie also interrupted and asked, “what does ‘Yooreeka’ mean?”
Dieter simply said that he didn’t know, and she should ask father when he got home. After warning his younger siblings not to interfere with his storytelling again, he continued to read about Otto the prospector, who had in an instant become one of the wealthiest (and not to mention luckiest) men on earth. However, displaying great humility, Otto decided to return to Germany for a short while to personally give the enormous diamond to the Kaiser. This earned him much respect but also unwanted attention.
“Now, here comes the exciting part,” Dieter added.
“…Otto took a train to Swakopmund, from where he would take a boat to return to Germany. The provincial governor had generously paid for a first-class seat, and very helpful attendants and crowds of admirers besieged Otto, of which he found slightly tiring, but he handled his situation with good humour. He showed the curious passengers the diamond whenever he was asked, but always returned the stone to the safety of his pocket.
But after several hours of uneventful travelling on the train, Otto decided to get a bit of fresh air, and headed to the open balcony at the rear of the cabin, where each of the passenger cars were linked together.
‘It’s nice to get away from the crowds,’ a voice chuckled. Otto discovered that he was not alone on the balcony. The other man was short, had small dark eyes, and a large hooked nose.
‘Yes, it is,’ Otto answered.
‘Can I see the diamond? I’ve heard a lot about it.’
Otto sighed, wondering if all the attention would ever cease “ giving the stone away to the Kaiser would be a welcome relief. He pulled the diamond out of his pocket and showed it to the short man.
In an instant, there was a flash of steel and a splash of blood. The short Jew had drawn a knife and cut Otto’s arm! There was a sharp jolt of pain that convulsed Otto’s arm, causing him to drop the magnificent diamond, which the Jew expertly snatched.
Enraged, Otto threw a punch with his uninjured arm, but the short Jew ducked and grabbed Otto’s midsection. The thief then pushed up, and used Otto’s momentum to tip him over the railing and send him sprawling into the rapidly moving dirt below. By a miraculous stroke of luck, Otto avoided hitting the train’s crushing steel wheels, but he tumbled and tumbled until he flopped to a stop, battered and bruised.
The short Jew laughed in triumph and pocketed the diamond. He made his way through the chain of passenger cars until he reached his seat in the crowded third-class cabin. He pulled out a scrap of paper and scribbled a note:
Haman,
I have stolen the diamond “ now we will have the funds to execute Phase One of the Plan!
~ Korah
Korah the Jew rolled up the note and inserted it into a small brass cylinder with a screw-off top, attached to a short lanyard. He then seized the wicker basket in the luggage rack above his head, and pulled out a ruffled pigeon. The Jew tied the little cylinder to the pigeon’s leg, opened the window by his seat, and tossed the pigeon outside. Unaccustomed to the extra weight, the bird dropped almost a metre before it climbed up in the air and flew away.
The carrier pigeon flew for several days and crossed hundreds of kilometres, until it reached a splendid plantation mansion. The Jew named Haman found the pigeon on his windowsill and read the note“”
“Dieter, there’s a carrier pigeon at the window!” squeaked Lena, pointing with a little finger.
After a quick glance, Dieter said, “Don’t be silly. It’s an owl“”
He did a double take and looked at the window again. There was a small, pigeon-sized owl sitting on the windowsill, softly tapping the glass with its beak.
And in its beak was a letter.
Well, isn’t that weird, Dieter thought. A carrier owl…
“Yay! We get to read the Jew’s letter “ what an exciting story!” his other sister said, forgetting that the note’s text had been reveal a mere two paragraphs earlier in the novel, or that the wrong kind of bird was carrying it, or that there was absolutely no reason why the owl should have been there to begin with.
“It looks cold,” Paul said, which was the only thing about the entire situation that made any sense. The owl’s feathers were flecked with white bits of snow, and it tapped the window with more urgency.
His sisters pleads to let the cold bird inside were not needed. Dieter set down Sky Captain Otto von Von on the coffee table, walked over to the window, and seized the latch. “The window opens outward. You should get out of the way,” he said to the owl.
A second later, he suddenly realised how absurd it was to have just talked to an owl. It couldn’t understand him. He shouldn’t have bothered.
Dieter pushed the window open, and the ruffled bird hopped out of the way and then flapped inside the house, accompanied by a gust of chilling air and a smattering of powdery snow. The owl quickly dropped the envelope and shook itself dry like some small, feathery dog; afterwards, the bird resembled a downy fluff-ball with two big eyes and feet sticking out of the bottom.
“Ooooh! Isn’t he adorable?” his sisters squealed excitedly. Paul rolled his eyes, but Albert was too young to care “ he smiled toothily and said, “Flower!”
While his younger sibling (save for Paul, who pretended not to care) fawned over the bird, Dieter examined the letter the owl had delivered. The envelope was of thick, yellowish parchment, and there was an odd red wax seal, which had been stamped with an image of a triangle with a circle inside, with both shapes bisected by a vertical line.
“So, who’s the letter for?” asked Paul, almost as an afterthought to the bird’s arrival.
“Flower!” Albert said again.
Dieter turned the envelope over and read the address:
The Sitting Room
Number 23, Erdnuss-Straße
Gemüsestadt
Thüringen
Germany
Europe
The World
“It’s for me,” he stated, perplexed. Not only was the letter addressed in the most peculiar manner, he was disturbed by the fact that the sender even knew what part of the house he was in. Dieter looked at the window where the owl had entered, expecting to see someone spying on them, but there was nobody there.
With slight trepidation, he broke the wax seal and tore the envelope open “ the letter inside was of the same thick parchment, and it was meticulously folded into a tight square. Dieter carefully pried it apart, and flattened it on the coffee table. The top of the parchment had the same triangular symbol and below it, the letter read:
Dear Master Dieter Eckhard Heydrich,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to Durmstrang Institute, a school for youth of extraordinary attributes and abilities. As you possess certain qualities valued by our school, and we will be deeply honoured if you assent to learn at our institution.
Please return a response as soon as you can with Sleipnir “ he is a highly trained and reliable bird, and he knows where to find me. If you accept, I look forward to discussing this matter with you and your family at greater length.
Best wishes,
~ Theoderich Odoaker
Deputy Rector
“Durmstrang? Never heard of the place…” Dieter muttered. Part of him wanted to be excited “ he was being offered a place at a highly selective and presumably prestigious school, but that feeling was crowded out by the impenetrable mystery of the school itself. How did this Theoderich Odoaker even know of Dieter to begin with?
“Could it be a Napola school?” suggested Paul. Unnoticed, he had been reading over Dieter’s shoulder.
He shook his head. “Can’t be. Look at the seal “ there’s no swastika. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before…”
Dieter’s other siblings couldn’t have cared less about the letter “ they never asked what it was about, since they were too preoccupied with playing with the owl… Sleipnir, apparently. Marie was drawing a colourful picture of the bird, and Lena and Albert were playfully following it as it explored the house on its little legs.
“I say we wait until Father gets back,” Dieter suggested, mostly to himself. “He should know what’s going on…”
Dieter didn’t bother looking after his younger siblings “ after all, the owl was proving to be a very effective childminder. He tried distracting himself from the strange thoughts about Durmstrang by reading more of Sky Captain Otto von Von, but the tale of Otto’s escape from his marooning in the Kalahari Desert offered no outlet.
Durmstrang… Durmstrang… what is Durmstrang? he thought after his curiosity won control of his brain. He read and reread the letter several times. It was all very mysterious, just like the disturbing meeting with Herr Strichleiter almost a month before, which Dieter wasn’t fond of remembering.
Another hour or two passed (Dieter wasn’t paying attention to the time) before his parents returned. They hung up their frosty coats on the rack while chatting to each other, but then Mutti saw the owl walking across the sitting room floor, and some of the children following it at a crawl.
“AHHH! What is THAT?” Mutti shrieked, pointing at the little feathery ball.
“It’s an owl!” said Maire, holding up the picture of the bird she had just finished. “And we named him Flower!”
“But what’s it doing in the house?” She then rounded on Dieter, who was sitting in the chair by the coffee table, the strange letter in hand. “What have you been doing this evening? You were supposed to stop things like this from happening!”
Father looked rather amused. “Now, now,” he said calmly, “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation why there’s an owl inside the house “ and a very nice one, I might add. Dieter, could you tell us why we have an owl inside the sitting room?”
“It came to deliver a letter,” he explained, waving the parchment in his hand.
“What? A-a letter?” Father inquired, as if he hadn’t heard correctly the first time.
“Yes,” Dieter confirmed with a nod. He handed his parents the letter and the envelope and added, “and it’s addressed to me.”
Father furrowed his brow and examined the thick parchment envelope. “…The Sitting Room… Germany… the World?” he muttered under his breath incredulously.
Both parents then read the letter, and Dieter waited for their reactions, slightly anxious. Mutti was the first to break the silence.
“Oh my, Dieter, this is excellent news!” she said beaming, having totally forgotten about the owl in the house. “I’m so proud of you; this school has recognised your talents. I think this calls for some sort of celebration! What do you think, Dear?”
Father looked far from joyous. “Durmstrang… Durmstrang… I’ve never heard of such a place.”
“Well, it’s probably a Napola school,” suggested Mother with undiminished enthusiasm.
Father shook his head. “No, it can’t be. It needs a ‘NPEA’ in front of the name, and this is no National Socialist symbol,” he explained, pointing at the triangular sign at the top of the parchment.
“So Dieter, you’re saying that this letter was delivered to you by owl?”
Dieter nodded. “Yes. Just like a carrier pigeon!”
“But do you know how carrier pigeons work, Dieter?” father asked seriously.
“Sure,” he answered, slightly put off by father’s tone of voice. “You write a message and strap it to the pigeon’s leg, and“”
“That’s not what I mean,” father interrupted and waved his hand impatiently. “I’m talking about how these birds find their destinations. Carrier pigeons can only be sent to one destination “ the place of their nest. Back in the war, every headquarters would keep broods of pigeons, and some soldiers in every unit would carry several of those damn birds in a basket on their backs “ and those pigeons only flew back to HQ, because that’s where their nests were. Now, I know that owls are not pigeons, but are you starting to understand what receiving a letter from this bird means?”
“Yes…” Dieter answered before his brain could catch up to his voice. Fortunately, father did the thinking for him:
“...You see, for this owl to have arrived at our house, it had to have already associated this place with home. And this means that in order for this owl to arrive here bearing a letter, this Theoderich Odoaker fellow has to have visited our house at least once already just to capture the stupid bird! And look at the address! ‘The Sitting Room?’ How could these Durmstrang people have known what part of the house you were in, if they weren’t guessing? I don’t like this. I don’t like the sound of this at all “ they must be spying on us.”
Mother put her arms around his waist and said reasonably, “Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions, Dear? The war ended a long time ago “ nobody’s out to get us.”
“I know, but that’s what I don’t understand,” Father said, running his hand through his thinning hair in agitation. “One of my friends in the war was a pigeon carrier “ I know how they work, and just based on how this letter got here is very unsettling.”
He looked at the letter and envelope again. “And they didn’t even include any return address. Typical… See, they don’t want us to know where they are! Wouldn’t you say that’s suspicious?”
Mutti reluctantly agreed “ as much as she wanted Dieter to go to a good school, she couldn’t deny the dubious circumstances of the entire affair. Tentatively, she asked, “So, how should we respond?”
“Respond?”
“Yes, respond,” she repeated to her husband. “The letter asks that we send a reply with the owl. What should we say?”
Father thought for a moment, considering their options carefully. Dieter (who felt slightly ignored in his parents’ conversation) figured that they could either accept or reject the offer, or“
“We don’t reply,” Father said simply. “Any response we send will give them an excuse to keep contacting us, so we’ll just make them think the letter never arrived. I’m sure that these Durmstrang people only have a limit number of openings in their school, and they’ll just move on to whoever else they’re spying on if they don’t hear from us.”
And as an afterthought, he added, “What do you think of that, Dieter?”
Despite the appealing prospect of being accepted to a highly selective school, everything was just too weird. He was wanted by an institution he had not only never heard of, but had disturbingly good intelligence on what part of the room he was in and apparently must have been spying on the house! He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Do you think it could be some sort of joke?” Dieter asked, for the thought had just appeared in his head.
Father scratched his head. “What makes you think that?”
Amazed by his own brilliance, Dieter replied, “You said that carrier pigeons “ or in this case, carrier owls “ can only be sent on one-way trips, to wherever their nests are. So that means whoever sent this letter must be a neighbour or someone else who lives in the town, and I bet they’d think it would be very funny to have us fall for this or overreact.”
Vati smiled, impressed. “You know what? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that was true “ I wonder why I hadn’t thought of that before.”
“So, do we still ignore it, then?” Mother asked, and both Dieter and his father nodded.
“That’s right. We don’t want to make fools of ourselves. Glad you thought of that Dieter “ I was thinking of reporting this letter to the Gemeinschaftsleiter.”
Getting the Party involved? THAT would have been embarrassing! Dieter thought…
“Mutti, Vati, can we keep Flower?” Lena asked, jolting Dieter and his parents out of their absorbing discussion about the mysterious letter.
They looked at the owl, which was now standing unusually still on the coffee table. Its bright yellow eyes stared back at them, as if waiting for their answer.
“He’s a wild animal. How are we going to take care of him?” Mother answered reasonably, but the younger children looked quite hurt. She walked over to the window through which the owl had entered the house and opened it.
“Come on, Sleip… sorry. Flower, it’s time to go back outside.”
The blizzard-like conditions on the other side of the window were far from inviting. The little owl didn’t move.
“Shoo!” Father said, to absolutely no effect. And the owl still didn’t move after several more ‘shoos’ of stronger tone. He sighed and reached to grab the bird and physically put him outside if he had to“
“OW!”
Sleipnir/Flower the owl had aimed a precise jab at Father’s index finger, drawing blood. He tried grabbing a second time, but the owl thwarted him with another sharp peck.
Father muttered some colourful curses (even Dieter gasped), and didn’t try forcibly evicting the owl again.
“Now what?” Mother inquired, perplexed.
As if answering that very question, the owl walked over to the small stack of papers on which Marie had been drawing. It rolled a pencil onto a cleared area of the coffee table, and tapped one of the pieces of paper with a clawed foot.
Please return a response as soon as you can with Sleipnir “ he is a highly trained and reliable bird, and he knows where to find me…
“I think he wants us to write a response,” Dieter suggested. It was the only explanation that made sense.
“But I thought we agreed that we should just ignore the letter,” Father argued.
“Looks like we can’t,” Mother said. “The bird isn’t going to leave any other way.”
Father sighed and conceded defeat. He tentatively reached for the pencil and piece of paper, and the owl did nothing to stop him. Looking over his shoulder, Dieter read what his father wrote:
Dear Professor Odoaker,
We would be positively delighted if you could tell us more about Durmstrang personally. Thank you for offering Dieter a position in your school.
With kind regards,
~ the Heydrich family
Father tore the paper into a more manageable size and folded it. “There. Are you happy now?” he asked the owl.
The bird said nothing, but seized the note in its beak and finally flew out the window and into the chilling cold.
Notes:
Mein Kampf mit der deutschen Sprache: This means “My Struggle with the German Language,” a name some Germans (in private) called Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
Sky Captain Otto von Von: These books are totally fictional and are my own creation, but I think they reflect the kind of propagandised literature common in Nazi Germany.
Napola Schools: These were elite boarding schools designed to turn little Nazi children into big Nazis, essentially. The official name of this kind of school was Nationalpolitische Erziehungsanstalten, meaning “National Political Institutes of Education.” The official acronym was NPEA, but most people just called them Napolas.