The Constant Man

by Peter Steiner

  Reinhard believed that he had found the courage to see things as they really were. Adolf Hitler – not Jesus or Saint Ignatius – became his patron saint. Only Hitler embodied the true human spirit. Adolf Hitler was willfulness, lust, power in human form, and that was everything Reinhard had been lacking. He saw it now: power was as close as he would ever get to goodness, because power was the only thing that was true. Hitler and Hitler alone understood the necessity of dominance.

  Reinhard did not want to be loved, he wanted to be feared. Being feared would bring him the freedom he had been missing; being feared would bring the fulfillment he sought. Invoking fear in others would be the irrefutable confirmation of the triumph of his power and his will. It would end his own fearfulness and timidity and finally bring focus and meaning to his life.

  The SS and the Gestapo drew their members from all segments of society. And not a few had been doctors and lawyers and teachers and even members of the clergy. What went on in their minds to take them from the helping professions to the hating professions is essentially unknowable. In Reinhard’s case it had to do with the void within. He was and always had been morally empty, devoid of purpose because he was devoid of humanity. He had a great barren desert at his center, where the hot, empty wind blew back and forth and never stopped. Just as it can be with anyone, the lawyer’s or the doctor’s or the teacher’s or even the priest’s conscience can be a feeble organ. In Reinhard’s case, whatever conscience he had was too small and too weak to resist the siren call of fearsomeness, power and malignant and sadistic delight.

  Reinhard Pabst had sufficient intelligence and training to allow him to construct an intellectual framework on which he could organize a justification for his malignancy. ‘Look around, Reinhard,’ said Hobbes, ‘at the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.’ Nietzsche told him, ‘Give up on God. He’s dead. Your Christian love is nothing more than impotent hate.’ The world Hitler was making was the one true reality, one that sprang from the tribal Germanic essence, from blood and soil, and from an unblinking appraisal of human existence. And most importantly it spoke to Reinhard’s desire.

  The SS were Hitler’s knights, dressed in black and silver with the death’s head on their hats. And the Gestapo, the secret state police, were of an even higher order. The Gestapo wore no uniforms. They could not be recognized until you felt their hand on your shoulder. Their charge was to pursue traitors, spies, saboteurs and those who committed criminal attacks on the Nazi Party and on Germany – that is, on the essential truth of power. And because their charge was almost a holy one, they did so without oversight by the courts or by anyone else, except the Führer himself. They could take any citizen into custody for any reason or no reason at all and dispose of them as they saw fit. Reinhard joined the SS where you swore an oath to live and die for the Führer. And, after his basic military training, he went to work for the Gestapo, an occupation that meshed nicely with his murderous inclination.

  The Gestapo sent Reinhard to Berlin for several months of advanced training. He was attached to a security service unit and, because of his Jesuit experience, was sent to root out trouble in the theology department at Humboldt University. Because Reinhard was young and attractive, he mingled easily with the students and could join in their theological conversations.

  Over beers they talked about scripture and doctrine, about the sacraments and Christian symbology. They all knew the risks, of course, and were circumspect when it came to talking about the political situation, or Hitler, or anything else having to do with the Third Reich. The trouble was that nearly everything these days had something to do with the Third Reich, every thought was measured against Hitler’s thought and was either correct or treasonous. Reinhard was a patient and gifted interlocutor. He found that he could discern from discussions that had nothing to do with politics which of his new friends might harbor errant ideas, who might be a traitor to the Reich. After less than a week at the Humboldt University, he made his first arrest.

  The Blood Flag

  The Reichsbahn, the national railroad, had laid on special trains, and every one of them was filled to bursting with uniformed men. The atmosphere was festive, despite the heat of the day. Someone would start to sing, Horst Wessel or the Deutschland song or some other marching song, it didn’t matter what, and by the second or third line everyone had joined in. Heinz Schleiffer knew all the words. His shirt was soaked, and sweat was running down his back, down his legs and into his boots. He didn’t mind a bit.

  In Nürnberg the train shuddered to a halt with a screech and a great sigh, spewing steam across the platform. The men spilled out of the train, out of the station and into the square. They fell into formation, hoisted their flags and standards, and marched off in the direction of the Zeppelin field. The parade, one group in black, the next in brown, seemed endless. Their flags fluttered overhead. Their marching and singing echoed off the ancient buildings back at them in a grand and joyous cacophony. Just to hear the power of it, to feel the company of those marching beside him, filled Heinz with happiness.

  After an hour’s march, the vast field opened up before them. They joined the other thousands streaming onto the grounds or already standing in formation. They found their assigned place not far from the Grandstand with its giant swastika and countless red, white, and black flags. The celebratory noise was deafening. Cries of ‘Heil Hitler’ rang out from every direction. And then everything went quiet.

  Suddenly there he was, in front of a small procession coming toward them. One man was carrying the Blood Flag. They had carried that very flag during the Beer Hall Putsch twelve years earlier, where it had supposedly been soaked in the blood of the martyrs. For some reason it made Heinz think of the veil of Veronica, but he drove the thought from his mind. The Führer, standing right in front of him, solemnly touched the flag to the unit’s guidon in the Bluftahnenweihe, the Blood Flag Baptism, consecrating the unit and with it Heinz himself. It was a sacred moment, one Heinz would never forget, no matter how long he lived.

  Tens of thousands of men and boys – the Hitler Youth were there too – stood in the sun and waited. Finally Hitler stepped onto the podium, saluted, and everyone raised their arms and shouted, ‘Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!’ It was as though they would never stop. Finally Hitler stepped to the microphone, his eyes cast down, his hands folded in front of him, and the entire mass of men fell silent.

  He spoke softly, hesitantly at first, and the crowd strained forward so as not to miss a word. He welcomed this army of followers, and with the greatest humility professed his gratitude for their devotion. He had been called to leadership, he said, a role he had neither wanted nor sought, by the dire situation Germany had faced. He recalled the early years of the movement in which his vision for a reinvigorated Germany had crystalized and taken on the hardness of steel.

  He was not a vain or arrogant man, he said, but he had felt called to this sacred task of renewal. It was his divine duty to do battle against a weak, decadent, and corrupted order. This order had been created, and was run, by socialists and democrats following their false gods of socialism and egalitarianism. He had come to destroy them, remove them from their thrones, and to solve the longstanding ‘Jew problem.’

  ‘Now,’ he said, his voice rising, ‘that which is old, decayed and evil perishes. And let it die! For new life will spring up. We have come together on this day to prove that we are more than a collection of individuals striving one against another, that none of us is too proud, none of us too high, none is too rich, and none too poor, to stand together before the face of the Lord and of the world in this indissoluble, sworn community. When was a leadership at any time faced with a heavier task than our German leadership?

  ‘Consider, my comrades: how little we Germans have, compared with the wealth of other states, the wealth of other countries, the wealth of other peoples, with the possibilities they possess. Germany is crowded. We have one h
undred and thirty-seven people per square kilometer. But we have no colonies, no raw materials, no foreign exchange, no capital. We no longer have any foreign credits. We carry heavy burdens, face only sacrifice, taxation, and low wages.

  ‘What do we have, then? One thing only: we have our people, our German people. Either it is everything or it is nothing. It is the one thing we can count on. It is the one thing we can build on. Everything that we have created up to the present we owe solely to the people’s goodness of heart, its capacity, its loyalty, its decency, its industry, its sense of order. And when I weigh all this in the balance, it seems to me to be more than all that the rest of the world can offer us.

  ‘So this, I believe, can be our message to other peoples on this great day. You do not have to be afraid that we want anything of you. We are proud enough to confess that we already own a treasure, one you definitely could not give us: our people. I could, as Führer, think of no more glorious, no prouder task in this world than to serve this people. One might give me continents, but I would rather be the poorest citizen among this people. And with this people we must and shall succeed in achieving the tasks that are still to come.

  ‘What we want lies clear before us: not war and not strife. Just as we have established peace within our own people, so we want nothing more than peace with the world. For we know that our great work can succeed only in a time of peace. But just as we have never sacrificed honor in our relations with the German people, so will we never surrender the honor of the German people in our dealings with the world.’

  Heinz Schleiffer felt pride well up and fill his being. A feeling came over him, unlike any other he had ever known. He belonged somewhere. He belonged to something bigger than his beer truck or his pissant son. He belonged to something great and eternal, a great movement, a proud nation.

  Many, maybe even most, ordinary Germans – listening to the speech on the radio, or even just going about their business – felt something like what Heinz felt. Their lives, their work, their families had significance again. They were once again part of a great culture and a great nation. The Nazis, whatever else you could say about them, had made life worth living again. Even the fact that while the Nürnberg celebration was going on, the Reichstag had adopted the new Race Laws stripping German Jews of their citizenship, while not unknown to Germany’s ordinary citizens, did not get in the way of their happiness. After all, only the Jews were affected. Not them, not the real Germans.

  We humans seem to have a natural inclination toward normalization. We get used to whatever conditions may come along. We can fit even dire circumstances into our daily lives, once we get used to them. It shouldn’t be surprising therefore that, when tyranny and fear became the norm in Germany, when criminal behavior became acceptable, and simple humanity became dangerous, most ordinary Germans went on with their lives as though these changes and the curtailment of rights and freedom did not matter all that much. If people even knew about these changes, it was from the newspaper and not from their own experience. And what was in the paper might be a lie. The Führer said it was a lie. And even if it wasn’t a lie, well, then at least it had happened somewhere else, in someone else’s life.

  Ordinary Germans could carry on with their lives despite ‘Blood Flag Baptisms’ and other such colorful nonsense. They told themselves and each other, ‘Well, yes, all this has its ridiculous side, and, yes, its awful aspects too. I mean the race laws go too far. Yes, the Führer’s methods are hard, even cruel. But maybe he has no choice, like he says; maybe he has to strike with an iron fist. Did you ever think of that, how hard his task has been?’

  On March 2, 1936, Hitler ordered a small contingent of German troops to cross the Rhine River and occupy the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland. He did this, of course, in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles and against the advice of his generals. General von Blomberg was certain they would be forced by the French and English to beat a quick retreat.

  Instead, nothing happened. The Germans retook their land without any opposition. ‘There, you see? If he hadn’t just marched into the Rhineland, if he hadn’t started building up an army and navy again, even when the French and British fuss and fume about it, where would Germany be? Still in the doldrums, still a defeated third-rate power, that’s where.’ But thanks to the Führer, every red-blooded true German could feel pride again, could walk with his head held high.

  Thanks to the Führer’s bold military and industrial initiatives, Germany’s prosperity was on the rise, its economy was getting stronger all the time, while the French and British and Americans were still struggling to come out of the Great Depression. In the German Reich food was plentiful and affordable again, hunger was banished. People had homes, they had jobs again and were paid a livable wage. They could enjoy life again too. How long it had been! They went to movies and concerts, visited nightclubs and cabarets, sang in choirs, exercised at the gym, played soccer with their friends, shopped, had neighbors in for dinner. And, at the same time, they were part of something larger than themselves.

  Thanks to the Führer, and to no one else, you could have a satisfying life. ‘Keep your mouth shut, your nose clean, and your head down, and you’ll be fine. Life goes on. And we have to go on too, don’t we? For the sake of our children, for the sake of our parents.’

  The Second Report

  Willi listened to Hitler’s speeches when they were broadcast and read the newspaper accounts of the rallies. His and Lola’s safety depended on their knowing what was going on. Something like the retaking of the Rhineland could embolden Hitler to accelerate his aggression. The new Nürnberg Race Laws could cause the police to modify their procedures and their focus and, by the same token, could cause Willi to curtail certain activities, to lie low, to avoid some contacts and risk others. A speech like the Nürnberg speech would almost certainly reinvigorate Hitler’s followers. Especially someone like Heinz Schleiffer, who was part of the flotsam and jetsam, swept this way and that by the fascist tide.

  Willi had continued to spend some time in Karl Juncker’s apartment even after Schleiffer had appeared at his door, calculating, wrongly as it turned out, that Schleiffer would do nothing after their confrontation. As he watched Schleiffer in his freshly pressed uniform going off to catch the Nürnberg train, Willi had second thoughts.

  Normally Schleiffer was content to harass the poor postwoman, or to drive the occasional homeless man from the building’s entrance. But his sense of purpose had been reinvigorated by Nürnberg, just as Willi imagined it could be. Heinz determined to refocus his attention on the task at hand – Germany’s greatness and the Party’s power. Immediately on returning, he paid Ortsgruppenleiter Mecklinger another visit.

  Lorelei, Mecklinger’s secretary and lover, had been replaced by a solid, stern-faced middle-aged woman, Frau Irmgard Kinski. She had close-cropped hair and small, wire-rimmed glasses that magnified her grey eyes so that she resembled a large, pale fish. She wore a uniform – a brown man’s shirt, a black tie and a long brown skirt. ‘Do you have an appointment?’ she barked. It did not sound like a question.

  The Führer had spoken of all Germans having an appointment with destiny, and for a moment it occurred to Heinz to say that he had an appointment with destiny. Instead he said, ‘I do not. But I have important information about a German traitor the Ortsgruppenleiter is going to want to hear.’

  ‘Your name?’ said Kinski.

  ‘SA Mann Schleiffer!’ he said and saluted.

  Frau Kinski had much to recommend her. She was neither young nor beautiful, which pleased Gudrun Mecklinger – there was no chance her husband, Gerhard, would be tempted to begin a dalliance with her. And it pleased Gerhard for the very same reason. Gerhard had found Lorelei a secretarial position in police headquarters in Ettstraße, where the pay was better, for which she was of course grateful and wonderfully forgiving. Now he could rollick in her sweet arms without Gudrun being any the wiser.

  Moreover, Frau Kinski could take dictation, was
an efficient typist and an effective buffer between the Ortsgruppenleiter and unwanted visitors like Schleiffer. Her only deficit was her defective hearing. ‘Herr Ortsgruppenleiter, there is an SA Mann Steiffel with information about a German traitor.’ She had misheard Schleiffer’s name and gave the word traitor a special honking emphasis. ‘You will want to see him.’ Mecklinger did not want to see anyone, but Frau Kinski really gave him no choice.

  His face fell as Schleiffer entered the office. ‘Heil Hitler, Herr Ortsgruppenleiter!’ said Schleiffer, snapping his heels together and saluting.

  Mecklinger stood up, his face turning red. ‘Damn you, Schleiffer. How dare you give a false name to get in here!’

  ‘What? No, Herr Ortsgruppenleiter. I didn’t, I didn’t, I swear …’

  ‘I told you that we would investigate the case of … of … that you brought in earlier. And we are doing exactly as I promised. The investigation is proceeding as we speak. And unless you have genuine new evidence of treachery, I want you to leave immediately. NOW, GET OUT!’

  ‘Herr Ortsgruppenleiter, it is my duty to report to you that Karl Juncker continues to receive mail from abroad, that he—’

  ‘Get out, Schleiffer!’

  ‘Herr Ortsgruppenleiter …’

  ‘Out!’

  Once Schleiffer had saluted, Heil-Hitlered, and fled, Mecklinger went out front. ‘Frau Kinski,’ he said, ‘see that that man is never admitted again. Never. Is that understood?’

  He went back and sat down at his desk. Whatever he had been doing before Schleiffer had arrived, now he had completely lost his train of thought. This Schleiffer; what an idiot; he had some nerve. But then Mecklinger remembered Frau Kinski’s hearing problem. So it wasn’t necessarily that Schleiffer had lied.