Deutsches Requiem is also a short story by
Jorge Luis Borges, which takes its name from the above-mentioned
Brahms work. It is a great example of how Borges
writes his stories in the form of false documents, in order to
effectively and with full force put forth controversial -- but
extremely interesting and worth pondering -- ideas, that he does not
necessarily endorse.
The story is narrated by Otto Dietrich zur Linde, a Nazi concentration camp subdirector who's been sentenced
to die by the Nuremberg tribunal. The thesis of the
narrator's essay is that in its defeat, the Third Reich is
"comparable to the Wizard who fashioned the labyrinth and
was then doomed to wander in it to the end of his days".
That is, its purpose has been realized, but as an unforeseen and
necessary consequence of this realization, it itself must vanquish.
This purpose, according to the narrator was to teach the world
"violence and the faith of the sword" and make sure that "violence
reigns and not servile Christian timidity". This is the narrator's
requiem to the late Third Reich (and to Germany, from his point of
view): "If victory and injustice (typo? YK) and happiness are not for
Germany, let them be for other nations. Let Heaven exist, even though
our dwelling place is Hell". A shocking idea of the postwar world
indeed -- a heaven in the eyes of Nazi philosophy!
This is a variation of the old "Battle not with monsters, lest ye
become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you" idea (Nietzsche is cited by the
narrator as one of his great intellectual influences, Brahms being
another one). But it is much more terrifying coming from the monster
itself, gleeful that its monstrosity lives on in its slayer. Of course,
this idea of the monster's is a monstrous, abominable one, but
nevertheless it is fruitful to contemplate. That is why Borges must
construct and employ a false author to this document. He even goes
farther and uses footnotes to poke holes in the narrator's
credibility.
Of course, this technique isn't unique to this story, Borges uses
false documents and unreliable narrators to great effect in almost
all of his stories, most notably The Garden of Forking Paths, The
Shape of the Sword, Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote and Three
versions of Judas. In the latter he invents a couple of
theologians to suggest the idea that God did not come down
to the earth as Jesus, but rather as Judas, an idea
which is very interesting to ponder (read the story for the arguments),
but should not taken into any real consideration.