Treaty of Versailles, The Power of Love

It was late winter in Berlin, 1931, and Erich knew he had to leave the Brownshirts. More and more they fought with other political parties and the worst happened when Erich was involved in a bar brawl where two German communists were killed. His fellow Brownshirts were proud of him, but he knew he had to get out and find peace or stay on the path to becoming a monster.

He chose not to be a monster.

By May of that year, he met Nicholas and fell in love. His job at the Reichstag office went well until rumors about the growing power of the Brownshirts came to pass and they gained a majority in the elections of 1932. The old laws against queers were enforced and new laws were enacted that made everyone suspect. Nikki and Erich had to flee or face the prospect of life in a concentration camp, so they started a new life in Canada.

In 1935 Nikki returned to Berlin to help his mother with his ailing father. Shortly thereafter his mother, angry with him for his lifestyle and his desire to go back to Erich, turned him over to the SS.

Erich would not let the man he loved languish in a concentration camp. He made a plan to save Nikki, but for the plan to succeed Erich had to become the monster that he ran from as a Brownshirt; he had to become a NAZI.