A tale of two tax accountants
This not-a-fairy-tale started off as a flippant, happy-go-lucky look at two tax accountants connected to White Rose resistance. The more I thought about the story, the sadder I got.
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived an evil king, King Adolf. King Adolf’s father, King Weimaraner, had been a benevolent but awful king. King Weimaraner had been defeated in a big crusade against his neighboring kings, and when they demanded lots and lots of gold coins from King Weimaraner, he meekly did as he was told.
The subjects in this country, the country of Odenwaldisius, were not happy with King Weimaraner. King Adolf saw and heard the complaining among his father’s subjects. Even before his daddy died, King Adolf set about undermining King Weimaraner’s reign. He told the Odenwaldisiusians that King Weimaraner hated them. King Adolf said that it was King Weimaraner’s fault that Yellow People had been allowed to destroy the country.
When King Weimaraner died, there was great rejoicing in the land of Odenwaldisius. Peasants and serfs danced in the street. Even Yellow People wondered how bad King Adolf could be. After all, they too had suffered from King Weimaraner’s lack of courage. They too had lost property when King Weimaraner allowed fat geese and gold coins to become worthless, and when a global economic crisis hit the fairy tale land of Odenwaldisius, it was quite enough.
Everyone was happy and jubilant when King Adolf’s promises came true. People had jobs, and gold coins in Odenwaldisius were once again worth their weight… in gold. Businesses prospered. Rich people started new companies, hiring even more people, and not for a pittance of feathers, no! Workers were paid with whole geese and sometimes, a gold coin. They did not ask questions about the work they did. It was enough that they were paid by their generous overlords, even if they were making longbows and ballistae in peacetime. They were satisfied with their geese and gold coins and kept their mouths shut. King Adolf was much better than his father.
Yellow People, on the other hand, were not quite as happy a month or two into King Adolf’s reign. King Adolf’s soldiers, dressed all in brown, posted signs that said they could not sit on park benches or go to Brown schools. Brown People could only marry Brown People, and it was against the law for them to marry Yellow People. King Adolf said something about “Odenwaldisius for Odenwaldisiusians,” which meant Brown People only, not Yellow People who were also Odenwaldisiusians.
Nevertheless, Yellow People found a way to adjust to the new normal. When King Adolf decreed that Yellow People could only wear Yellow Clothes, and had to add the word “Yellow” to their names, they kept hoping that everything was only temporary. After all, this was Odenwaldisius. In Odenwaldisius, Yellow People had had so much freedom. Many believed they were Brown People first, and Yellow People second.
And then came a horribly bad, no-good day in November, right after everyone in southern Odenwaldisius had eaten their onion pies and drunk their new wine. It was a wonderful autumn in Odenwaldisius, everyone was more or less happy. Yellow People had gotten used to taking walks in the park instead of sitting on park benches, and Yellow People had also made their own schools and troubadour associations once they could no longer play with Brown People troubadours or go to Brown People schools. Life was still good.
Until it wasn’t.
Suddenly one night in November, five years after King Adolf had taken the throne, Brown People attacked Yellow People as they slept in their homes. They dragged them from their beds, beat them up, killed a few of them. They broke the windows in the stores that Yellow People still owned. They burned holy temples and holy scrolls that belonged to Yellow People. Yellow People who still lived in houses where Brown People lived were forced to leave and move into tiny little cottages with a bunch of other Yellow People. Brown People forced Yellow People to sell their homes and businesses for goose feathers instead of geese.
And now, not only did Yellow People have to wear Yellow Clothes, they also had to paint themselves completely Yellow, so it was clear they were not Brown and never could be.
Yellow People called that night in November “Night of the Massacre,” while Brown People called it “Beautiful Glass Shattering Night.”
In one of the most picturesque towns in Odenwaldisius, there lived a tax accountant named Bobbin. Bobbin had been a poor tax accountant for many years. Bobbin wanted to be a politician, but he liked the dames and wenches of the kingdom too much. Once he courted the wrong wench, and the town where he lived ran him out and told him to stay away forever. So he decided that maybe politics was not the best thing for him, and Bobbin learned how to do regular old bookkeeping for business owners who paid employees with feathers.
Once King Adolf entered the castle in Little Bear City, Odenwaldisius, Bobbin’s business improved. He went to the king’s school to learn how to prepare tax returns. Bobbin realized he was not half bad, so he moved his family to the picturesque city of Hulma where no one knew about the married wenches he had courted.
At first, Bobbin’s family lived in a tiny little house high on a hill above Hulma. In a few years, Bobbin’s tax business was doing so well, they moved closer to the big Brown temple in the center of town.
Bobbin’s family moved to the home on Blessed Street when King Adolf was a new king. In those days, Bobbin did not care that his neighbors in that house on Blessed Street were Yellow People. They still had their businesses, and he made good connections to them. In the beginning, they were able to pay him with geese and gold coins, so Bobbin was happy. Bobbin was even happier when Blessed Street was renamed King Adolf Avenue. What an address!
Then came that Beautiful Glass Shattering Night. Bobbin and his family could not understand why their neighbors called it Night of the Massacre. Only one person in their building was massacred. Couldn’t the rest of them see how beautiful all that shattering glass was? It sounded like the porcelain bells on the plaza in front of the Brown temple.
Before long, there were no Yellow People left in their building. Yellow People were all forced to move in with other families in those tiny little houses in the undesirable part of Hulma. But Bobbin had a few patrons who used his tax services, and these patrons were employed by King Adolf. The Yellow People may be gone… If Bobbin wanted more business from more patrons in the employ of King Adolf, well, he knew what he should do.
Bobbin moved his family from the Yellow People house to a grand dwelling next to the Brown temple in Hulma. Their new address: Brown Temple Plaza! How wonderful! Bobbin could even get the dwelling for next to nothing, because it had belonged to a Yellow People family.
With this new address and grand dwelling, Bobbin’s business exploded. The top thirty employees of King Adolf in Hulma gave Bobbin their business. Bobbin had more fat geese and gold coins than he knew what to do with.
Two of his daughters joined him in his tax business. The oldest daughter Yngvi accompanied Bobbin to official events and concerts. Yngvi wore brown all the time. It was her favorite color. She volunteered to teach the young girls of King Adolf’s court why Yellow People were bad, and the reasons that only Brown People should rule the world. Yngvi loved to teach those classes even more than she loved helping her father Bobbin in his business, and she loved helping her father! Especially when they attended concerts and Adolf’s dinners together.
The youngest daughter, Salome, was not particularly happy when she had to work with her father and Yngvi in the tax business. She wanted to be outdoors, swimming in the Hulma River or climbing trees. She thought accounting was boring and tax accounting, don’t get her started.
Salome was therefore ecstatic when she joined her brother Yochanan in Monktown. They attended King Adolf’s university in that city. Bobbin had so many gold coins that both Yochanan and Salome could live almost as well as they did in Hulma. Bobbin made sure they had reliable steeds, an indoor shower in their student dwelling, and a talking device so they could stay in touch. Which they often used to ask for more gold coins.
One day, Yochanan and Salome were distraught when they heard their father had been arrested by King Adolf’s men. Bobbin had made some silly remark about King Adolf’s mustache or his body odor or some such nonsense. Oh right, he had compared King Adolf to an ancient guy named Abu the Ounna, who liked to fight a lot. King Adolf did not like it when people made fun of him.
Before Bobbin moved to Hulma, before he was a real accountant for the King’s court, he had made a friend of a classmate in the king’s tax school named Jevgeni. Jevgeni was a Brown People married to a woman who was a Yellow People. Bobbin met Jevgeni during the reign of King Weimaraner, when no one minded that a Brown People married a Yellow People.
Jevgeni heard that Bobbin was in trouble. Even though he suspected that Bobbin preferred to associate with Brown People, still, Jevgeni considered Bobbin a friend.
King Adolf’s courtiers decided that Bobbin needed to learn his lesson and not mouth off about King Adolf being like Abu the Ounna. King Adolf did not like it when people made fun of him. So King Adolf’s Court Jester made Bobbin sit in prison. The Court Jester said if he sat there for four months, he would better understand what it meant to be a proper Brown People.
Jevgeni traveled from his home in Stuokart to Hulma, preparing taxes for Bobbin’s patrons. Because he was married to a Yellow People, he did not see much of Hulma. Jevgeni simply wanted to help a friend.
Bobbin’s daughter Yngvi worked with Jevgeni on the books and tax filings for her father’s patrons. Salome did not. But Salome enjoyed talking to Jevgeni.
You see, while in Monktown, Salome and Yochanan learned that Odenwaldisiusians were doing terrible things at the bidding of King Adolf. King Adolf had sent his knights on a crusade to both the east and the west. His knights were killing and maiming innocent people. Of course, they murdered Yellow People wherever they found them. But King Adolf’s knights loved killing so much, they would herd people into barns and set the barn on fire, or they would line up people, just because, and shoot them. And then leave their bodies on the ground and not bury them.
Yochanan and Salome and their friends wrote about these murders and horrible deeds of the knights, posting parchments to citizens they believed would take action against what they knew were crimes.
Salome’s heart was broken by these tales that she heard from knights who returned from faraway lands. She could not bring herself to talk to Jevgeni about the crimes, but she knew about his Yellow People maiden and knew his heart was breaking too. Salome could not talk to her sister Yngvi about what she and Yochanan were doing, because Salome knew Yngvi taught that Yellow People were bad, and the reasons that only Brown People should rule the world.
King Adolf’s courtiers in Hulma convened and determined that Bobbin had learned his lesson in only two months, so Jevgeni could stay in Stuokart and not travel to Hulma. But Salome remembered that Jevgeni had a broken heart, like she did.
When Yochanan, Salome, and their friends decided to send parchments to many, many cities in the kingdom, Salome told Yochanan about her conversations with Jevgeni. Together with their friend Iskandar, Salome and Yochanan traveled to Stuokart. They told Jevgeni about their parchments and about the evil things that King Adolf was doing.
Jevgeni had a loyal assistant named Mechthildis. Mechthildis loved Jevgeni’s wife and helped Jevgeni protect his maiden. When Mechthildis heard of the parchments that Salome, Yochanan, Iskandar and their friends were writing, she not only gave of her own geese and gold coins, but she also convinced other wenches to do the same. Mechthildis traveled frequently from Stuokart to Monktown to take parchments, quills, and gold coins to the students at the King’s university.
One day, Salome and Yochanan foolishly flaunted King Adolf’s rules and scattered parchments at the university in Monktown. The sacristanus, loyal to King Adolf, was downstairs and saw Salome throw parchments over the balustrade. The sacristanus alerted the King’s constabulary, who promptly arrested Yochanan and Salome.
Since King Adolf hated people who flaunted his rules more than he hated people who made fun of him – but not quite as much as he hated Yellow People – he ordered his Court Jesters to execute Yochanan and Salome forthwith.
When the constabulary in Hulma learned about the execution of Yochanan and Salome, they wondered if perhaps Bobbin too was sympathetic to the cause of Yellow People. They put him back in prison.
But it was tax season! Bobbin’s patrons, all unquestionably loyal to King Adolf, could not find a new tax accountant on such short notice!
Thirty of Bobbin’s best patrons wrote a letter to the Court Jester in Hulma, begging the Court Jester that if Bobbin did have to stay in prison, would they please let him work while he was there? The Court Jester agreed that the taxes for these patrons were important and granted their petition. Bobbin and Yngvi were grateful to their patrons. Several patrons visited Yngvi in Bobbin’s home on Brown Temple Plaza, promising to do whatever they could to ensure Bobbin was free. When they fulfilled their solemn vow to Bobbin’s family, Yngvi was even more grateful.
Meanwhile, the constabulary in Stuokart – the Chief Constabulator in Stuokart was a close friend of Bobbin – decided that they had had quite enough of Jevgeni and his Yellow People maiden. Once a friend of Yochanan and Salome mentioned Jevgeni’s name in connection with the parchments, Jevgeni too was arrested. No patrons wrote letters to Court Jesters on his behalf.
The same day the constabulary in Stuokart arrived to arrest Jevgeni, they sent his maiden to a killing factory in the east. Jevgeni never saw his maiden again.
The Chief Court Jester traveled from Little Bear City to Monktown to preside over the circus with the many friends of Yochanan and Salome on display. Yochanan, Salome, and another friend named Kito had already been murdered by the King’s executioner. Now their friends stood before the same Court Jester.
This second circus ended with the Court Jester decreeing that three must be murdered, and Jevgeni had to spend the next ten years in prison. The Court Jester also said that Jevgeni could never work again, that he had lost his honor as a Brown People forever. Jevgeni had to sell his tax business to Mechthildis, who loved Jevgeni as she loved Jevgeni’s maiden. Mechthildis promised to care for Jevgeni’s patrons as was right and proper.
One day while Jevgeni was in prison, while the crusade was still being waged, someone came to visit. Jevgeni asked about his maiden, who had been sent east to a killing factory. Jevgeni’s friend could hardly speak. Finally Jevgeni’s friend told him that King Adolf’s knights had murdered Jevgeni’s maiden.
Jevgeni… well, Jevgeni tried to kill himself. He did not want to live without his maiden. Just because she was Yellow People! Just because!
But Jevgeni did not kill himself. He grieved, and grieved, and grieved some more, until he thought he could not grieve a minute longer.
Meanwhile, the Court Jester in Hulma decided that Bobbin had not learned his lesson the first time around. He said in future, Bobbin could not prepare tax returns. He could only do bookkeeping for his patrons. Most of the King’s courtiers who had been his patrons did not want to pay him to keep their books. Besides, he had finished their tax returns, so they no longer needed him.
At least Bobbin had just enough gold coins to keep living in the splendid dwelling on Brown Temple Plaza. His family still bought new clothes and could still barter for fat geese and wine.
When King Adolf lost the crusade (and killed himself!), the land of Odenwaldisius tried to put itself back together. Giants from the west had beat King Adolf’s knights. Now they were in Odenwaldisius, and they did not want King Adolf’s knights, constabulary, and Court Jesters to keep Odenwaldisiusians stirred up against Yellow People or anyone else they hated.
In a flash, it no longer was a good thing if a Brown People had taught other Brown People that Yellow People were bad, or the reasons that only Brown People should rule the world. The Giants from the west now ruled the world, or at least they ruled Odenwaldisius.
Yngvi and Bobbin therefore said they had always loved Yellow People. When the Giants from the west asked them about Yellow People neighbors, Yngvi made up stories about how she and her father had helped Yellow People. Yngvi didn’t really know any Yellow People, but she knew some of their names. So she told the Giants from the west that her father had visited their Yellow People landlord after the Beautiful Glass Shattering Night, ‘I mean, Night of the Massacre,’ Yngvi said. The Giants from the west did not know that that Yellow People landlord had been dead for six months before Night of the Massacre.
Yngvi cried a lot when she talked to the Giants from the west about Yochanan and Salome, and she made sure the Giants from the west saw her crying. Since she did not know about their parchments, she had to make up stories about Yochanan and Salome as well.
But Yngvi was a very good storyteller. The Giants from the west were happy to find a Brown People who did not hate Yellow People. They asked Bobbin to become Lord Mayor of Hulma. Bobbin gladly accepted the title, along with the pomp and circumstance that accompanied his new life. The Giants from the west were happy to find a former Brown People so compliant with their wishes. Bobbin even helped Yellow People get their property back! He learned from Yngvi.
Yngvi lived her best life when the crusades ended. She and the Giants from the west made a contract. The Giants from the west would give Yngvi lots and lots of fat geese and gold coins. In exchange, Yngvi would tell Brown People why Brown People were bad, and the reasons that only the Giants from the west should rule the world. Both Yngvi and the Giants from the west were happy that Yngvi was such a good storyteller.
Jevgeni was not a good storyteller. Jevgeni was simply a good man who had loved a Yellow People maiden and had lost her forever.
But Mechthildis had kept her promise. Jevgeni’s patrons were still happy with the tax returns that Mechthildis prepared for them. Jevgeni and Mechthildis continued working together after the crusades ended. They married, and Mechthildis ran the business since Jevgeni was still grieving.
After ten springs, ten summers, ten autumns, ten winters, Jevgeni and Mechthildis stopped preparing tax returns for Brown People. All the pain, the broken hearts that both of them knew from the years of King Adolf’s crusades – Jevgeni and Mechthildis turned the pain and broken hearts into something new and beautiful.
Jevgeni and Mechthildis turned all that pain, all that hurt into love for animals and fellow humans. They campaigned for animal rights in the new kingdom that was (effectively) run by the Giants from the west, for preventive medicine, to learn more about diseases that are transmitted from animals to humans.
And they all lived happily ever after.
A tale of two tax accountants. One who made a handsome living off Adolf Hitler’s brown horde, whose daughter turned reinvention of who she had been during the Third Reich into a cottage industry that made her rich.
The other who loved justice and mercy, who lost his Jewish wife in Auschwitz, and who turned his grief into something beautiful.
Two tax accountants. Only one was righteous.
This not-a-fairy-tale was birthed while working on tax returns last week, coming off a long stretch of working on the digital version of White Rose History, Volume II. Of course, Forms 1120 and 1040 and 990-N made me think about these two very different men.
And how we revere the wrong man. Eugen Grimminger, husband to Jenny nee Stern, deserves our respect and admiration. Not the chameleon Robert Scholl.
But we - the US government - gave Scholls a boatload of money after the war to tell stories we wanted told. Stories that glorified democracy. Stories that highlighted the evil that Nazism exhalted. Stories that twisted fact into a palatable legend.
This post started off as a flippant, happy-go-lucky look at two tax accountants. The more I thought about the story, the sadder I got.
Please join me in honoring the right people, the ones who had the courage of their convictions during that evil time. Not the ones who figured out how to game the system after the war.
Thank you.
Denise.
© 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote.
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