Although as a sailor I despised politics - for I loved my

Host: The harbor was silent, save for the groan of ropes and the soft sigh of the tide against the pier. The sun had just set, leaving behind a band of crimson that faded into ash and smoke. The air smelled of salt, oil, and iron — the scent of labor and longing.

A single ship lay anchored offshore, its hull rusted, its flag limp. Jack leaned against a bollard, lighting a cigarette, his grey eyes fixed on the water. Jeeny approached from the dock, her coat fluttering in the wind, her hair tangled with sea spray.

Jeeny: “It’s strange, isn’t it? How the sea looks the same even after the world has changed a thousand times.”

Jack: “The sea doesn’t care about the world. It just takes what it wants.”

Host: The wind picked up, rattling the masts, carrying the sound of waves like a memory that refused to die.

Jeeny: “I was reading something from Fritz Sauckel earlier — one of Hitler’s ministers. He said, ‘Although as a sailor I despised politics — for I loved my sailor’s life and still love it today — conditions forced me to take up a definite attitude towards political problems.’ It’s such a contradiction. A man who loved freedom of the sea but became an architect of forced labor.”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. He took a drag, exhaled, the smoke curling in the wind like a ghost escaping confession.

Jack: “That’s the problem, isn’t it? The moment you say ‘conditions forced me.’ That’s where every monster’s story begins. Always the conditions, never the choice.”

Jeeny: “Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe sometimes the conditions really do corner you. Maybe not everyone who serves power loves it.”

Jack: “You’re defending him?”

Jeeny: “No. I’m trying to understand him. There’s a difference. A sailor, someone used to freedom, discipline, wind, and sky — to end up a cog in one of the darkest regimes in history? That’s not just corruption, that’s tragedy.”

Host: A wave crashed against the pier, sending a fine spray across their faces. Jack didn’t move. His eyes stayed on the sea, as if the horizon itself were on trial.

Jack: “You can dress it up as tragedy if you want. But every tyrant starts as someone who says, ‘I didn’t want to, but I had to.’ That’s the oldest lie in the world.”

Jeeny: “Maybe. But tell me, Jack — haven’t you ever done something you hated because you thought it was necessary?”

Jack: “Necessary isn’t the same as right. And when you start confusing the two, that’s when men like Sauckel rise. He claimed he loved the sea, but he drowned in obedience.”

Host: The lights from the harbor town began to flicker on — dim, orange, and far away. The reflection shivered on the water, like a promise that refused to stay whole.

Jeeny: “Maybe he was weak, not evil.”

Jack: “Weakness in the face of evil is evil, Jeeny. Don’t romanticize it. You know how many people died because of his ‘attitude toward political problems’? Millions of forced laborers, worked to death under his orders. You can’t sail away from that.”

Jeeny: “I’m not excusing him. I’m wondering how someone who loved something so vast and untamed — the sea — could become so small, so obedient.”

Jack: “That’s the danger of obedience. You think it’s duty until it’s damnation.”

Host: The wind rose, whipping Jeeny’s hair across her face. She brushed it aside, her eyes glinting with defiance and sadness.

Jeeny: “Do you think we’d do better, Jack? If the world fell apart again, and some powerful voice told us it was the only way to survive — to obey, to align, to serve. Would we still choose freedom?”

Jack: “Freedom’s easy to preach, hard to pay for. I’d like to think I would. But truth is — people don’t become monsters overnight. They just stop noticing when they start following.”

Jeeny: “And sailors always follow the wind.”

Jack: “Yeah. But even the wind doesn’t tell you where to anchor.”

Host: The sea roared, a low, ancient sound that seemed to speak in its own language — a warning, a lament.

Jeeny: “You know what I think, Jack? I think Sauckel never really left the ship. I think he just changed captains. The regime became his new ocean. He traded freedom for belonging.”

Jack: “Belonging is dangerous when it’s blind. It’s the kind that makes men salute while others hang.”

Host: Jack’s voice cracked, not from anger, but from remembrance. There was a time, perhaps, when he too had saluted without thinking.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why he mentioned loving the sea — to remind himself he wasn’t always a monster. To remember the boy who once believed in horizons.”

Jack: “That’s the tragedy you wanted. A man trying to justify himself to history.”

Jeeny: “Or to his own soul.”

Host: The dock creaked beneath them as the tide shifted. The moon emerged, silvering the water, softening the edges of the world.

Jack: “You know, I’ve met people like that. Men who say, ‘I had no choice.’ But there’s always a choice. Even silence is a choice.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the real enemy isn’t politics. It’s fear. Fear of losing your job, your life, your place in the world. Fear of being alone in your conviction.”

Jack: “And that fear is how tyranny breeds — in the quiet hearts of decent people.”

Host: A seagull cried overhead, its voice cutting through the night air, as if to mock their solemnity.

Jeeny: “Do you ever think about what you’d do, Jack, if history asked you to choose?”

Jack: “Every damn day. That’s why I stay away from flags and causes. They all start with ‘duty’ and end with blood.”

Jeeny: “But not choosing is still choosing.”

Jack: “Then I’ll choose the sea.”

Jeeny: “That’s what he said too.”

Host: Her words hung in the air, fragile, dangerous, true. Jack’s eyes narrowed, a spark of pain flashing in them — not because she was wrong, but because she was right.

Jack: “Yeah. And look where it took him.”

Jeeny: “Maybe it wasn’t the sea that betrayed him. Maybe it was the shore.”

Host: The fog began to roll in, thick and white, swallowing the lights, erasing the distance between sea and sky. Jeeny stepped closer, her voice now a whisper, soft as prayer.

Jeeny: “You can’t despise politics, Jack. No one can. Because politics is just the way power decides who gets to breathe. You can love the sea, you can love peace, but sooner or later, the world forces you to take a side.”

Jack: “And when that side is wrong?”

Jeeny: “Then you fight the tide — or you drown with it.”

Host: Jack threw his cigarette into the sea, watching it hiss and vanish. The smoke dissolved, like all the excuses men have ever made.

Jeeny: “The sea forgives, Jack. History doesn’t.”

Host: The camera would have pulled back then — the two figures, small against the vast water, surrounded by fog and light, their voices lost to the wind.

And in that endless horizon, Fritz Sauckel’s words echoed like a warning from another age: that a man can love freedom, yet still serve tyranny — and the most dangerous kind of surrender is the one disguised as duty.