As I’ve said on this blog, and… really, to anyone in my real life that will listen, I love history. It really doesn’t matter the era or the type, I adore it all. I love learning about it… reading about it… I even love swimming in it until my fingers get all wrinkled.

Although, in the interest of full disclosure, I doubt anyone would watch me swim in anything, even history. Given my pasty skin and weak body, I’d be that one albino seal who can’t swim and gets rejected by their mother to flail on the beach and get eaten by a polar bear.

World War II is a particular favorite of mine, not because I have any affinity for genocide or dictators with mustaches, but because it’s an era in history that was so wide in scope that it affected nearly everyone on the planet— in some way or another. Even Switzerland, which had promised to stay neutral during the conflict, still managed to get ahead by selling Saint Bernards, lots of holey cheese, and hoarding money in their banks that everyone liked to pretend hadn’t been stolen from the Jews.

My own family was affected by WWII, also. My father was born in a remote, mountainous village in the Basque region of southern France during the Nazi Occupation. While my poor grandmother was pushing my dad out of her vagina, there were German soldiers literally downstairs in her kitchen. I suppose it was important for them to determine if the people scurrying in and out of the house were spies… or just old ladies with clean towels and hot water.

As much as I like true stories, sometimes I read alternative WWII history books and novels because it freaks me out. Just imagining a world where the Nazis won the war is enough to give me a giant case of the heebie-jeebies. After all, if Adolf Hitler had achieved his aim, folks like me wouldn’t even exist.

Many people don’t know this part of WWII history, but the earliest victims of Hitler’s genocide were the disabled. By 1933, the Nazis mandated the forced sterilization of all disabled persons— whom they considered “life unworthy of life” and “useless eaters.” This plan made perfect sense to the German people, yet, it didn’t seem to matter that their own leader looked like a penis with a comb-over.

This policy helped to set the stage for the beginning of 1939, when the Nazis began to murder… oh, excuse me, they called it “euthanize”… all the disabled babies, children and adults in their budding empire. Doctors, nurses and other medical staff were required to report all their disabled patients to the government. The younger at diagnosis, the better. It’s more effective to hone your death tactics on victims that can’t fight back or wipe their own ass.

Once Nazi officials received a report of a disabled person, they’d send staff to the home. Using glowing descriptions of their caring facilities, they’d coerce the families into sending their disabled loved ones to their special hospitals for treatment.

I imagine these conversations sounded something like this:

“Hello, Mr. Schneider. We’ve got a brand new medicine that we’d like your son to try. It’s amazing… transformative.”

“Really? What is it?”

“It’s sort of a gas… an… an inhaler, if you will. It’s called Zyklon-B. It’s like… penicillin… only better.”

“Oh, wow. How much will it cost? I— I don’t have much money.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Schneider. It’s totally free.”

“Thank you so much.”

“Oh, don’t thank me… You can thank the Führer for this generosity. By the way, does your son like strudel?”

Then, after some time had gone by, they’d send the family a letter notifying them of the death of their child or relative. Sometimes it would include a box of cremated remains since the Nazis loved dispersing ashes even more than the Catholic Church on Ash Wednesday.

These letters to the families always included a fictitious, yet, somewhat believable, cause-of-death. Like pneumonia… or fever… or choked on a cherry strudel.

To be honest, choking on a cherry strudel sounds like something that I would totally do. Yes, I love baked goods that much. So, unfortunately, my family would have probably believed it if a Nazi doctor had told them that’s how I met my maker.

Their scheme worked remarkably well for years. While some families grew suspicious, on the whole, most people believed what they were told. And the Nazis were outstanding propagandists. They had laid the groundwork for years ahead of time— making it known that these undesirables were better off dead, anyway. This made it less likely that anyone would go seeking answers.

As you can imagine, I am thankful, everyday, that Hitler’s grand-plan eventually fell apart. Not only for myself, but also for my grandmother that had to contend with German soldiers worried about the contents of her uterus.

But, while the man, himself, may be dead, Hitler’s philosophies do still live on. May they never rise up again, though. Because, if they do, I might need some cherry strudel.