This poem is part of the series Interviews With Vampires. Note that poetry is best read in a browser on a larger screen.
Hans Fritzsche at Nuremberg
When I’m awake, two forces in me struggle.
One asks why I contributed to this
System. The second one insists that I
Could not have known of these atrocities.
But when I dream, I only feel the second.
I look up from my mother’s lap; she soothes
Me with her gestures; then she looks away.
I can’t recall a case where I refused to help.
To garden; to use my hands to work the soil.
I wanted a contemplative existence.
I worked in propaganda, as you know.
For those ten years, I painted black and white.
The Allies did the same. In fact, their hate
Was such as we would never dare in Germany.
I used to broadcast every day; then, weekly.
Fans wrote me thousands of approving letters;
Quite a few were from Americans.
I favored bringing Jewish influence down,
Until proportionate to their percentage
Of the larger population.
I see guilt like a scattered constellation.
One cannot blame one man, or just one state.
But how well does it work, in actuality?
Ideals can be blinding. We observed
American democracy, and saw
The rich controlling what the public thinks.
Thus, a dictatorship was deemed permissible.
In their hearts, millions of idealists knew
That the opinions, rights, and welfare of
The individual must be sacrificed
So that for once the state could flourish.
The danger you face here, in making false
Judgments, is that their falseness will be felt,
And germs of repetition will be kept alive.
They will say, I suppose, that it is not
How many Jews I saved that is at issue.
Hans Fritzsche was tried for war crimes at Nuremberg, and found not guilty. He died of cancer in 1953.