The Corporal

The History Reconstruction Arm

Of the Ministry of Offence,

Had called me in for a meeting

With the Chiefs of Recompense,

They said they needed an agent,

Prepared to risk his all,

‘We have the technology waiting

Now we need to change the world.’

 

The shelves in the shops were empty

People fought for a loaf of bread,

Butter was unobtainable

And so was cheese, they said,

The ration cards have been in place

For fifty years or more,

The money was spent on the army, sent

To fight this terrible war.

 

Thank God it hasn’t gone nuclear,

But they said that it never would,

The threat of retaliation kept

The armies where they stood,

The Reds are commanding the channel coast

Right down to the Pyrenees.

And Britain is standing alone again

Though they’ve brought us to our knees.

 

The Fascists in Whitechapel

With their propaganda rule,

While down in Brixham Prison

Lie the hopes and dreams of fools,

They shot the Liberal Poets and

Wiped out the socialist left,

They say what’s good for the country

Is the strong arm of the west!

 

The States are a bristling fortress

But they’ll never come to our aid,

They say whatever they owed us

Was in 14-18 paid,

They’ve colonised the Pacific

Made New Zealand just a State,

Australia’s turned their backs on us

And left us to our fate.

 

‘We’ve studied where it all went wrong,’

Said General Angus Pryde,

‘The Treaty of Rapallo is where

The hopes for peace had died,

That treaty, with the Russians helped

The Germans to re-arm,

Under the cloak of Soviet help,

That sounded the alarm!’

 

‘The man was Walter Rathenau

Who signed that evil form,

Sold Germany to the communists

That’s where this war was born,

The Reds then flooded Germany,

The Reds took over France,

It was only the fact of the channel coast

That halted their advance.'

 

'This Rathenau was the leader when

The war was first declared,

The whole of history hinged on him

And caught us unprepared,

So what we’re now proposing is

The thing you need to do,

Go back, assassinate Rathenau

In 1922.’

 

‘Before or after the treaty’s signed?’

I asked the generals there,

They each looked, one at the other, said

They didn’t really care.

‘To stop the Communist Party taking

Over the German mind,

We’d rather a swing to the right,’ they said,

‘And the rest would fall in line.’

 

'That would leave a mighty hole to fill,

The German leader’s seat,

Who do you think would take his place

If I shot him in the street?’

‘There’s only an Austrian Corporal has

The language, and the style,

But what would a Schicklgruber do?

Would the Germans still say ‘Heil?’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[David Scott]

Those pesky time machines. I know that is why things get so messed up. Even the gods get mad at us for time travel and just leave us to our fate for messing with something so sacred. Time is the Alpha and the Omega, is it not? Should we really be manipulating it...? Ha. Just messing with you. Loved it.
Be well my friend.

[Lena M. P.]

Different take on an assassination that actually took place after which the Nazi party came into play. He was one of the founders of the German Democratic Party. He was a scholar and a great politician. Not surprising that the Nazi party wiped out any tributes to the man. Going back in time to change history. If he had lived and prospered with his politics, Hitler might not have gained a hold.

[Marie]

Do I understand this correctly? Someone goes back in time to assasinate one German leader and replaces him with someone worse.