Western Front
1918
Green fields and meadows. A beautiful sky, young German men singing. Suddenly, fire. Darkness. Hate. A dull shrieking noise that grew louder and louder until...
""Wake up, Adolf! Get moving, quickly!"
Hitler's trench reflexes kicked in immediately, and he rolled over. The shell narrowly missed him, showering him with mud, slime, and worse. "Heinrich!" Hitler called. "Are you still alive?"
There was no answer. Hitler tasted blood as he got up and looked back to where he had been sleeping seconds before. He wished he hadn't, because what he saw made him retch.
The young field officer- a small, bookish Prussian with a pinched face and spectacles who would have been at home in a school or a library in any sane world, kicked some dirt over him. "That's all we can do for him. Let's move, boys! We're retreating."
The men gave up ground resisting the enemy advance as best they could. Which effectively meant running, hunched over, for dear life. Suddenly Hitler felt a sharp pain in his side. He cried out and fell over. Than all went black.
When Hitler awoke, he realized that he was in a hospital. To his left, there was another bed with a dour looking soldier in it. "Stinks to be us, eh?" Hitler nodded agreement. "American shell. Left leg- I'll never walk again. In the Champagne. Yourself?"
"My side hurts." Hitler realized that was not sufficient. "We were across from a British unit. Northern France, mybe Flanders. I lose track. I'm Adolf Hitler , by the way."
"We all do, chum. I'm Yankel Leibowitz, of Frankfurt."
"Jewish?" asked Hitler.
The man nodded. "But those things mean nothing to me. I'm neither a Jew, nor a German, but a citizen of the world. That's Socrates, of course. But it could well have been Marx. Socrates was ahead of his time."
"Are you a Marxist, then?"
"And proud of it." The man rolled over to face Hitler, grunted and winced. "The dialectic predicts that the revolution is near in the world's most advanced nations. That'd be us. We held off the United States, Britain, and France all that time, and managed to defeat Russia in the middle of it. All thanks to the advanced proletariat of our nation- that's you and me, my friend. The people have never been stronger- but we're still working for a system that is against our own interests."
A glint appeared in Hitler's eye. "Yes, the Kaiser, that fool, he has sent us into war needlessly. The German people never faltered, but that man betrayed us."
"Yeah, the Kaiser's an imperial pig, but what can you do?"
"What you said. We could rise up. Bring the German people, the most advanced in the world, into power."
"It's too late for that, my friend."
"What do you mean?"
"The war's over, Hitler. We surrendered without losing an inch of German soil. Wilhelm fled to Holland. Luddendorf's in Sweden. They stabbed the German proletariat in the back, Adolf. They stabbed us in the back."
"Pigs." Hitler's eyes blazed in fury. "Dogs. Every last one of them. The German people are invincible. It is our leaders who are filth."
"So, Hitler, do you want to join the party? I could hook you up with a friend in Frankfurt."
"Well, to tell you the truth," Hitler looked truly embarassed, "I'd never give you people much thought before. I always thought" Hitler studied his bedpost "you were all a bunch of Jewish conspirators. But I've never heard anyone prouder of the German people and nation then yourself."
"Not the nation," Leibowitz chuckled. "Nations are inherently evil. But the people, yes. As you said, we are invincible."
"It is a possibility" Hitler admitted after some thought.
"Well, you don't need to decide immediately. We'll be here for a few weeks more. You'll have time to decide. And time to talk about this."
"Good" said Hitler. "I have many questions."
"Wonderful," said Leibowitz. "I have many answers, and even more time. The only thing I lack is anything else to do."