Editing Deaths-Head Revisited (section)

==Plot==
Gunther Lutze, a former [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] [[Hauptsturmführer|captain]], checks into a hotel in [[Dachau, Bavaria|Dachau]], Bavaria, under the name "Schmidt". The receptionist seems to recognize him, but he deflects suspicion by claiming to have served in the [[Tanks in the German Army|panzer]] [[Division (military)|division]] on the [[Eastern Front (World War II)|Eastern Front]] during World War II. He asks if a nearby camp is a prison. When the receptionist says it was used as a kind of prison, he presses her for a further explanation, though it soon becomes clear that he knows the exact purpose of the camp.

He goes to the site, the now-abandoned [[Dachau concentration camp]], to recall his time as its commandant during the war. As he strolls around the camp, he revels in the memory of the torment he inflicted on the inmates. He is surprised to see Alfred Becker, one of the camp's former inmates and a particular victim of Lutze's cruelty, and equally surprised that Becker seems unchanged by the intervening 17 years.

Lutze supposes that Becker is now the caretaker of the camp, which Becker confirms "in a manner of speaking." As they talk, Becker relentlessly confronts Lutze with the reality of his grossly inhumane actions, while Lutze insists that he was [[Superior orders|only following orders]]. Lutze tries to dismiss Becker's description of cruelty by saying that the war is over and that he has moved on.

Lutze tries to leave, but finds the gate locked. Becker asks why he came back, given that he changed his name and [[Ratlines (World War II)|fled to South America]]. Lutze argues that he hoped that with the passage of enough time, the world would have moved on and people would be willing to forget his "little mistakes of the past." Becker retorts that Lutze's actions were not mistakes, but [[crimes against humanity]].

Becker and a dozen other ghostly inmates put Lutze on trial for his actions, which include ordering the deaths of over 1,700 innocent people without trial or [[due process]], maiming and torturing thousands of human beings without provocation, the criminal [[Nazi human experimentation|experimentation]] on women and children, the murder of at least 14 people by his own hand, and calling and signing into effect orders for the gassing and cremating of one million human beings. Lutze screams and passes out.

Upon awaking, Lutze tells Becker he imagined the trial. Becker contradicts this, and informs Lutze of the guilty verdict. When Becker is about to pronounce the sentence to the court, Lutze mocks him as mad until he suddenly remembers that on the night American troops came close to Dachau 17 years before, he personally killed Becker and several other inmates and attempted to burn down the camp.

As punishment, Lutze is made to undergo the same horrors he imposed on the inmates in the form of [[tactile illusion]]s, including being shot by machine guns at the gate, hanging by the gallows and torture at the detention building. He screams in agony from the illusions and collapses. Before departing, Becker's ghost informs him, "This is not hatred. This is retribution. This is not revenge. This is justice. But this is only the beginning, Captain. Only the beginning. Your final judgment will come from [[God]]."

Lutze is found by authorities, sedated by a doctor, and taken to a [[Psychiatric hospital|mental institution]], since he continues to experience and react to his illusory sufferings. His finders wonder how a man who was perfectly calm two hours before could have gone insane so soon. The doctor then looks around and says, [[Never again|"Dachau. Why does it still stand? Why do we keep it standing?"]]