Word: mollendruz
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Dates: during 1963-1963
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...revenge, Messkirch decides to murder a French prisoner. He chooses Mollendruz, a young man of intelligence and character, as a worthy countersacrifice for his son. No sooner has he committed the murder than he learns that his daughter is carrying Mollendruz' child. True to his newfound Nazi standards, Messkirch disowns his daughter, who kills herself. He becomes a local hero, because "the father had yielded to the German in me." Ultimately, he sardonically observes, the Nazis "would have raised me to a legendary figure; my deed would have graced the pages of school primers; it would have been celebrated...
Messkirch expects to savor his revenge when Mollendruz' father comes to see his son's grave. But his revenge goes sour. He learns that Otto was not killed by the enemy but by the Nazis, for plotting against the regime. Utterly broken, Messkirch can only stammer a few words of bogus comfort to the Frenchman, his enemy. "I had forgotten the skepticism of which I was so proud," he concludes. "I had abandoned myself to darkness, and darkness ruled over...
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