The Murder of Hitler
by
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As he was trying to decide
how to phrase this letter, he approached the cathedral and saw a street artist
sketching on a large pad. As he got closer to the young man and saw his face,
he realized that he looked like the machine driver in his dream, except that
this young man was dressed shabbily and was altogether much more pathetic‑looking.
The man in his dreams may or may not have been dressed better, but that did not
matter because the expression on his face made such considerations trivial.
Franz paused by the side of
the artist and saw that the sketch was not only accurate in detail, but was a
reasonably sophisticated rendering. He thought weakly of his own stick‑figure
sketches, which were no more than doodles, of tiny men fighting, running,
crawling and kneeling on the ground.
“You’ve chosen a lovely day
for your work,” Franz said.
Quickly, the eyes of the
young man alighted on him.
“Oh, yessir,” he answered.
“I’ve sure lucked out today.”
Picking up the unfamiliar
dialect, Franz asked him if he’d been in Prague long.
“Just pulled in from
Vienna,” the young man said. “I was told this city is an artist’s dream, with
castles and cathedrals and all. I decided to come and take a look‑see for
myself.”
“And sell your pictures?”
“You bet. I’ve got a pretty
thrivin’ business goin’ in Vienna but I ran out of buildings to copy. I work
with a fellow who sells them for me. You an artist?”
“No, no” Franz said, too
full of denial. “No, I . . . well, I do a little writing . . . from time to
time.”
“Do you?” the young man
said. “That’s one of my ambitions, too.”
He scrutinized Franz’s
formal clothes.
“If you don’t mind my saying
so, you don’t look it. What I mean is, you don’t look like a writer.”
Franz felt embarrassment
again. Why was he always on the defensive, even with this threadbare. . . .
“I have a job,” he
explained. “That’s where I’m coming from now . . . I do my writing at night.”
The young man returned to
his sketching, but made it clear by an ever so slight tilt of his head in
Franz’s direction that he wished to continue the conversation.
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About the Book
A startling thriller, The Murder of Hitler
takes place in 1912 in Prague where the killing of Hitler changes the course of
European history in the 2Oth century.
The story is about the extreme duress Franz Kafka
undergoes as he suffers through the planning and execution of the murder. He
has dreamed that his three sisters are in mortal danger from an evil man. When
he later encounters the very face of the man on the streets of Prague, he
realizes that his dream has meaning. The only trouble is the man he encounters
on the street is a pitiful-looking street artist. How could this man endanger
his sisters?
Since he is an effete intellectual and troubled son
and artist, Franz is tormented by his self-imposed ultimatum based on the
reality of his dream. The question that plagues him is where in that weak face
is the evil man? Until he has substantial evidence that this is the man who
will kill his sisters, Franz cannot act. He therefore decides to engage,
follow, and get to know this impotent young man who, history tells us,
developed into a daring, powerful, and murderous leader ONLY AFTER his
experiences as a German soldier in World War One (1914-1918).
How the dramatic events unfold that lead to the
murder of Hitler is the subject of the book.
About the Author
August Franza is a novelist, playwright, collagist,
poet, short story writer who has been steadily producing creative work for
forty years.
Three one-act plays have been produced at SUNY Stony
Brook, Long Island, and at the late lamented Village Gate in New York City.
His collages have been exhibited at Generator
Gallery in the East Village of New York City, in a Sag Harbor Art Gallery and
at the Islip Arts Museum.
His essays, short stories, and poems have appeared
in such diverse publications as The New York Times, Newsday, Harvard
Magazine, ETC: The Journal of Semantics, Commonweal, The
English Journal, Harper's Magazine, Long Island Quarterly
and Hampton Shorts, an annual Long Island anthology of stories, essays,
and poetry.
Eight chapbooks of poems have been published dealing
(deliciously) with his wide travels, and, most recently, two short stories have
appeared in Hampton Shorts. Eagle Eye, a short story drawn from
an unpublished novel, was one of six finalists in a Newsday historical
short story contest, which had over 400 submissions.
Two textbooks have been in print and have been
selling for over a decade.
His degrees are from Brooklyn College (B.A.),
Columbia University (M.A.), and SUNY, Stony Brook (Ph.D.) His dissertation, THE
FALLEN IDOL, is about the relationship between the critic John Ruskin and
the painter J.M.W. Turner.