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Pov of Former Soldier
3-November-1920
''Ha, ha, ha! The Democrats lost… They lost badly!'' someone shouted while running through the streets.
And it was something spreading quickly now that the election results were being made known.
''They lost in almost every state. Wilson must be twisting in his wheelchair watching how he buried his own party'' said one of my army comrades, who was now reading the newspaper and showing me how the election had ended.
''Yes, they lost their electoral strongholds in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Arkansas and almost lost Texas. Well, I think the problems are coming now'' I said while shaking my head.
''Ha, let me guess who you voted for, eh, Walter?'' my comrade said, looking at me with a smile.
''I didn't vote. What the fuck good would it do me to vote for one of the idiots who sent us against German machine guns and their chemical gas, or for the idiot who wants to take away my right to vote because I'm a possible traitor?'' I said, emphasizing both things with my fingers while frowning because of all the shit that had happened.
''Oh… eh… damn. But you fought against the Jerries. Why would they want to punish you if you proved you have no loyalty to the German Kaiser?'' he said nervously and with concern when he saw my reaction.
''What the fuck does a politician know? The only thing they think about is trying to make us stop being German. It seems they have it stuck in their heads that, because we are German, we must be worshippers of the Kaiser or the nobles. There is a reason we emigrated here, and it was not to keep serving nobles. Two generations have lived here and, even so, I am on a list where they are considering taking away my right to vote because I fall under the stupid laws they are proposing'' I said, annoyed while covering my mouth with my fist.
I heard my comrade swallow, and it did not take him long to excuse himself and move away a little. With everything that had happened, I did not blame him. I was not in the mood to talk, since unfortunately, in these elections, I had no one to vote for.
Voting Democrat was throwing the vote into the rubbish in these elections. With what Wilson had achieved, with almost a million dead in Europe, it was clear they would lose the elections by an avalanche of votes.
And it was what they deserved.
They had done everything to save the Europeans. One thing was sending us, men of the professional army who had trained for years, but even we smashed face-first into a wall when we collided with the Germans, and I had ended up as a prisoner until the war ended.
But when I saw the German camps fill with American prisoners, I understood the chaos that had caused. It did not take me long to discover that the politicians had cut the training of new recruits down to barely a few weeks, cutting precisely what mattered most and turning them into easy targets for the German veterans of the East and the soldiers of the Sturmtruppen, who did not stop crushing our forces during their offensive toward the west.
The casualties suffered were scandalous. And it was not only the fact of having lost almost a million young men in a war we should never have entered. There were also all those who had returned.
Young men. Fathers of families. Men without hands, legs or arms.
Others with the aftereffects of poison gas, blind or with all kinds of wounds they would carry for the rest of their lives.
All of that to sign a peace that pleased no one and, to make matters worse, did not even last a year. As soon as we left Europe, a German general defied the order Wilson had left there and, although Congress discussed sending aid to expel the German general, they failed to gather the votes needed to send more Americans to die.
Fortunately, that ended in a short time, when the British managed to stop the German general together with the French, although no one seemed to truly know how much it had cost them to do it.
But I had returned to a country I had once considered my home.
Before the war, my neighbors considered me American. After returning, everything had changed for the worse. I was no longer Walter. Now I was the possible traitor who had sold out his comrades in Dijon to his ''German friends''.
They accused me of a heap of things about what had happened at the front. They said I had sold information, that I had helped the Germans, that surely I had made some kind of deal with them.
And many of those accusations came from people who had not even been in the army.
People who had not even fought.
But who had no problem pointing a finger at me and saying I must have done something to be captured and return whole, while others had come back broken… or simply had not returned from the war at all.
And that was not the worst part. The worst part was what the local authorities were doing to force us to stop being German. We could no longer speak German in public, they had closed all the German-language newspapers, Mass in German had been forbidden, schools could no longer teach the language and, to top it all off, there were places where Germans were being forced to sell their businesses to ''true Americans''.
They were doing everything they could to try to erase us and we had done nothing. We were simply the ones caught in the middle of all the criticism. They were not killing us like the blacks during the latest racial crises that had happened, but what was being proposed was beginning to border on madness.
Now women had the right to vote, but at the same time they were debating whether to take away our right to vote for being possible American traitors.
After finishing my drink, I took my things and went out into the street to return home, since I did not want to run into trouble considering everything that had been happening lately.
As I walked, I came across a group of policemen arresting several men, and it did not take me long to realize that it was the latest part of the State's repression against us.
They arrested them to force them to shout in the middle of the street, ''Death to the Kaiser!'' or sing some patriotic song to prove their loyalty. And since many of the policemen knew perfectly well who among us were of German stock, they were specifically stopping us to make us go through that.
So I passed quickly, avoiding the checkpoint so I could get home.
We lived in a German neighborhood and, for the most part, we already had enough problems trying to continue working and living normally. There was a constant presence of groups of ''patriots'' looking to beat up supposed traitors, as well as policemen who seemed to be searching for any excuse to lock you up, beat you or simply humiliate you.
''What they are doing is unconstitutional! They cannot do this to us! We have been citizens all our lives! Many of us have never set foot in Germany and even so they are putting us all in the same sack!'' I heard the priest shout inside the church.
We had gathered there in an attempt to draft some kind of complaint to get the Supreme Court of Justice to review what was happening, because, if things continued that way, they would end up placing us in a social situation similar to that of the blacks in some Southern states, where they were not even allowed to vote.
''And what the fuck do the Americans care? The only thing they care about is that we stop being German, but at the same time they do not even let us do that. We speak English, we work, many of us had shops where we lived alongside them every day, but now, with these latest laws that forced us to sell them everything practically for nothing, what the fuck do we have left besides trying to survive?'' someone shouted, raising his voice.
''Americans? We are Americans'' I shouted at the one who had said that.
''Ah, yes, and tell me why now I have to worry that I will not be able to vote in the next elections? What the fuck am I supposed to worry about? That someone will beat my son when he tries to go to school or that I have to desperately try to make my son speak English as quickly as possible so he can go to school because our school closed?'' the man shouted, shouting back at me.
''That is the problem with some idiot politicians. We have to do what the priest says and demand the guarantees the Constitution gives us against the government, and send a petition to the Supreme Court so it does something and stops this stupidity that has been created'' I replied through clenched teeth.
''And how long will we have to wait for the Court to make a decision? Months? Years? We have the problems now. There are drunks in the streets who want nothing more than to take it out on us, and most of them did not even take part in the war. They are only looking for an excuse to rob us of whatever we have in our pockets and say they are patriots for doing it'' someone else roared.
While everyone continued arguing, someone stood, put on his hat and began to leave.
''Helmut, this is important. We cannot let them do this to us, so we have to present a unified complaint. I will coordinate with the others to take it to the proper authorities'' the priest said, watching the man who was leaving.
''With all due respect, I lost the carpentry shop my grandfather opened here a long time ago. They gave me 103 dollars for the shop, that was all. I could not say no because they forced me to do it or they were simply going to expropriate it. And now I no longer know what to do. They will not give me work and I have already lost hope. What is the point of doing anything? I am going back to the Baltic. At least I know I will be received well there'' Helmut said while grimacing and taking his hat.
''Is that it? You are going to leave and abandon us to fight alone?'' someone said before Helmut left.
''Unlike you, at least I have the decency not to accept with a smile that they change my surname. My surname is Müller, not Miller, as those fucking Americans want. If you want their fucking citizenship so much, go ahead. I would rather have to worry about other things than spend my time wondering whether someone is going to try to beat me or what the fuck I will do to make it to the end of the month. So I will simply take the Heim ins Ostland offer from the German general in the Baltic'' Helmut said, smiling before turning around to leave.
''Enjoy the German dictatorship!'' I shouted at him.
''Enjoy being able to vote!'' Helmut replied, taking off his hat before leaving.
As soon as Helmut left, the whispers about the offer that had been repeated several times since it had arrived recently did not take long to begin: Heim ins Ostland.
It was the offer of the German rebel general, who offered all Germans living outside Germany or Austria the chance to go to the Baltic, where they would be given a house and where there was plenty of work.
But at the cost of freedom.
Because in that country, there was no democracy. Even Germany had its democracy, with a Kaiser, the Junkers and other nobles, but at least they could vote to decide certain things. There, if you disagreed with the German duke, you had no right to complain or decide anything.
And that annoyed me greatly.
We were like this because of the war against the Germans and because of their behavior as butchers during the conflict, with their chemical weapons and the way they had behaved in the occupied zones, with cruel treatment toward the civilian population that quickly filled the newspapers.
All the hatred we felt was even greater among those of us who had seen the war with our own eyes. That was why it bothered me that people would even consider voluntarily joining that dictatorship.
Once a month, a ship arrived at the port of New York and loaded itself with immigrants who wanted to go to the Baltic, and it seemed there were now many more preparing to pack their bags.
And to me, they were nothing more than the true traitors in all of this, proving right those who pointed at us. Because now some had no problem whatsoever leaving to work under the government of the man who, until recently, had been an enemy of the American government.
I shook my head.
At least we would fight for our civil rights as we had fought in the war.
We were not going to let them oppress us.
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