Warning/Disclaimer: If you love dogs, this might make you uncomfortable. Also, please treat this like one worst case scenario. It does not reflect my views on German society in general at the moment.

Symbolism

The dogs were real: he'd always been partial to canids, and, through his long existence, had always kept a few around him. And they were always real dogs, nearly always raised from puppyhood with all of his love and dedication. Even though their lives were even shorter than that of a human being, he could deal with it, because the human expectation was that masters would outlive their dogs.

The dogs were young, because he'd just adopted them a year or two back, after the previous ones had died of old age. He used to have a preference for pure breeds, but lately, he'd been taking mutts as well, and these three were the most lively, cheerful, energetic puppies ever. He was still a little wary of crossbred humans, but it wasn't something he could ever voice, and he worked hard to quell those thoughts.

The dogs were scattered across his lawn in large, careless chunks, around a swastika burned into the ground with weedkiller. Vaguely, he wondered which group it was that did this while trying to ignore the part of his mind that was screaming and screaming and screaming.

It was 1939. His brother had convinced him to try on a few uniforms, and they both had their photos taken, for posterity's sake.

It was 2009. The world had been informed that they existed. The photos (God, he should never have agreed to them, but they were both so giddy with victory then, so proud and so sure of the future) were leaked to the press.

The problem with human beings... people, he corrected himself mentally, because if he started referring to them as 'human beings', he could start referring to them as 'beings' and later as 'things' and ovens begin to seem like a reasonable idea. The problem with people was that when they saw a human-shaped thing, they judged it to be human. When they saw that the human-shaped thing had something they could never have, like immortality and apparent invulnerability, their jealousy would compel them to be suspicious.

'They.' 'Them.' Dangerous words again, but his dogs were dead and there was a lump in his throat and he wanted to crawl back into bed, to hide his head under a pillow and pretend that this was all a very bad dream.

The dogs were innocent and his heart was crying, but his tearless face betrayed nothing as he dug up the lawn to break up the symbol, because it was his duty to follow the law. It was his duty to bear the guilt. It was his duty to suffer the consequences.

He called the police because it was the right thing to do, even though there wasn't much to be done. He had the remains of his dogs cremated, because it was the best way to dispose of them. He replanted his lawn quietly and apologised to the neighbours. Most of them understood, because they knew Ludwig and that, to them, was more important than the uniform he used to had to wear.

He could bear it. He would bear it, because he once wore that symbol with pride and it was wrong. So he had to bear it.

But when Veneziano dropped by, when Veneziano looked around with a perplexed look on his face, when Veneziano asked him in all innocence, "Where are the doggies? I brought them some pasta!", Germany just broke down and cried.

Notes:

I understand there is a law in Germany that says no swastikas.