by Yehuda Avner
“It’s good that you have a sense of humor. You’re not going to have anything to laugh at soon enough. In the meantime, go down to the basement, where your friend Shmulik keeps his transmitters.” Draxler leered, enjoying the surprise that Dan failed to disguise. “Send a message to your Prime Minister Ben-Gurion.”
If the Germans wanted to communicate with the embassy, they should have sent someone from the foreign ministry, but there was no Israel desk there. There was only one reason that Israel had been allowed to set up a mission in Berlin—to evacuate Jews—and that was a matter for the SS and the Gestapo. So Draxler’s job was more than simply protecting the embassy. In his gritty, uncouth voice, he brought the messages that should have been delivered by a cultured undersecretary at the foreign ministry.
“A message for the prime minister that says what?” Dan asked.
“That the Führer summons him to the Reich’s Chancellery. Tomorrow at eleven.”
Now Dan had his face under control, but his stomach turned, and a harsh rush of bile spread across his tongue. “What’s it about?”
“Maybe the Führer wants a Hebrew lesson. How the hell would I know? Just tell him to get himself over here. Fast.”
Chapter 18
Ben-Gurion touched down at Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport after a long flight via Cyprus and Trieste. The “Führer weather” continued, but the Israeli prime minister shivered. He was accustomed to desert warmth. That, along with the war and an imminent meeting with a man who promised further persecution of his people, had put the Old Man in a foul mood. The drive through streets decked with Swastika flags and the long walk across the marble floors of the Chancellery only made him more irascible. By the time the adjutant, Brückner, showed them into Hitler’s office, Dan feared Ben-Gurion might simply declare war and have done with it.
Hitler was at his long map table, silhouetted against the sunlight through the tall windows. He had gathered a small audience for the show Dan knew was coming. Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler bobbed back and forth at Hitler’s side, expressing his agreement with the Führer’s opinions on the maps. Beside them, Reinhard Heydrich observed his SS commander’s sycophancy with polite attention. A cluster of Wehrmacht chiefs fawned around Hitler no less abjectly than Himmler.
“My Führer,” Brückner said. “The Prime Minister and his Ambassador. At your command.”
He still won’t say the name of our country, Dan thought. But we’re important enough for Hitler to take time from his campaign in Poland to summon us. He knew that it was Israel’s position on the maps laid across the gigantic table that had brought them here. The locale of the new state was filled with historical and spiritual meaning for Jews and Christians, but for the Nazis it represented only a matter of strategy.
Ben-Gurion crossed the carpet, scoffing at the swastikas woven into the design. Dan took in the massive furniture and the décor designed to awe. Hitler’s office was even more imposing than the adjoining reception room where he had presented his ambassadorial credentials. A tapestry on the wall showed the Germanic tribes massacring the Roman legions in the Teutoburg Forest two thousand years before. The desk in the corner was the size of a limousine. Its front was inlaid with images of Mars, the god of war.
Hitler drew himself up and stared into the light that spilled through the nets over the tall windows. He did not look at the Israelis. His voice was deep, cast low for deliberate effect, but strangely hollow. “You know why the Third Reich recognized your so-called state?”
“Out of the charity of your soft heart?”
The officials around the map table quivered with rage at such sarcasm from the upstart Israeli.
Hitler turned and stared at Ben-Gurion.
Dan wondered if Ben-Gurion could compass the emotions that had to be flooding through him under the scrutiny of those eyes and the megalomaniacal consciousness that lay behind them. He shook his head. Unlike Hitler, the Old Man could soften his heart. Because he had one. Because he was capable of the human attachment that eluded the Führer. But Dan knew that Ben-Gurion could also make himself unyielding and fearless. He sensed that in him now.
“We share certain short-term interests,” Hitler intoned. “Nothing more than that.”
“Agreed.”
“National Socialist logic dictates that Jews are a distinct race. They live apart from other races, according to their own laws. Reich policy is for the German people also to live apart from other races, so that we may be masters over them, as befits the qualities of the Aryan. Thus Jews must be expelled from the Reich. No other country is prepared to take them, so the Jews must go to your new midget state.”
Ben-Gurion’s shrug was as insolent and dismissive as a teenager caught with a cigarette. “Israel is small, but democratic. That’s better than a big dictatorship.”
Hitler raised his voice. “We have entered a new phase of the war.”
“You have. I haven’t.”
Hitler’s face took on the wide-eyed outrage and incomprehension of a man who expects the road to be clear and comes face to face with a lengthy traffic jam. Clearly he was unaccustomed to anything that resembled dissent.
“Your aim,” Ben-Gurion continued, “is to keep America out of the war. To annihilate France. To reach an accommodation with Britain.”
Hitler glanced at his generals. These were his stated war aims. But his face was confident and superior with the knowledge of other, secret plans the Israeli couldn’t possibly know.
Ben-Gurion sharpened his tone. “And to divide Poland with Stalin.”
The Old Man had decided to give up one of his secrets.
Hitler clasped his hands in front of his groin and stared down. No doubt he wondered how the prime minister of a piffling little Middle Eastern country knew about a confidential detail of the secret treaty he had made with the Soviet Union only a month earlier.
Shmulik wasn’t the only Mossad agent who’d been busy.
“I’ve always said the Jews are the most stupid devils that exist.” Hitler glowered at Ben-Gurion. Himmler nodded sagely. “They have no true musicians or thinkers, no art, nothing, absolutely nothing. They are liars, forgers, deceivers. They have only got anywhere through the simple-mindedness of those around them.”
“Evidently we have a lot in common with you Nazis.”
Hitler trembled with rage. “If the Jew were not washed by the Aryan, he would be unable to see for filth. We can live without the Jews, but they can’t live without us.”
Ben-Gurion swiveled his squat hips as though loosening his back. He made no comment. Perhaps because there was something in Hitler’s comments that was true—the Jews of Germany, and now of Poland, couldn’t live without Nazi cooperation.
“I want you to hear this directly from me.” Hitler delivered each word with crushing force. “If you join with France and Britain, there will be no more emigration for the Jews of Germany. I will not send Jewish manpower to you that might be used against me. I shall have to find some other solution for Germany’s Jews, one with greater finality.” Dan sensed a sudden tremor among the souls of the silent Jews who, once again, walked beside him.
Hitler swept his hand toward the map table. “In addition, I will invade your country, and the fate of Palestine’s Jews will be the same as the Jews of Poland.”
“You want the Jews out of Europe. So send them to us. Fine. But you have no strategic interest in the land of Israel.”
“From your territory, my forces could threaten the Suez Canal, the British Empire’s lifeline to its Indian colony. Now that I have washed your eyes of their filth, I expect you to see your situation with clarity. I am giving you an order, an ultimatum.” Hitler brought his hands to his belt. He rolled his arms, as he always did when he turned up the volume. “If you support Poland and its allies, Britain and France, I will make your subhuman people hostage to your actions.”
In all his years of negotiating with union leaders and kibbutz representatives back in Israel, Dan had never seen Ben
-Gurion simply accept or reject an ultimatum. Even now he played for time. “ International justice demands that the peoples of occupied countries be treated with humanity. We should very much like the Jews of Poland and Germany to become citizens of Israel. But until they do, they are not our responsibility. The world looks to you to protect them.”
Hitler threw back his head, an overdramatic gesture of contempt.
The Old Man’s voice rose. “But don’t overlook this— throughout history, those who killed us were in their turn killed. Those who sought to destroy us were in their turn destroyed. That’s not an ultimatum. It’s a fact. When the thousand years of your Reich have passed, there will still be Jews. We will not be destroyed.”
For the briefest of moments it seemed that Hitler might be forced to consider some new factor. Then he waved a dismissive hand and bent over the map table again.
The Old Man had one last thing to say. “We have a Yiddish phrase, ‘A shlekhter sholem iz beser vi a guter krig.’ A bad peace is better than a good war. Whether you think your war is good or bad, your people will soon long for a bad peace.”
Hitler showed no sign of having heard.
Brückner approached the Israelis and gestured toward the door. As they passed the SS men, the bodyguards stamped their feet and shouldered arms. Ben-Gurion snorted dismissively as he shambled by them.
Chapter 19
The British had bought their embassy on Wilhelmstrasse from a Hohenzollern prince, who in turn had purchased it from a bankrupt Jewish industrialist named Strousberg in the mid-nineteenth century. As he passed under its neo-classical facade and followed the guard’s directions to the gardens, Dan wondered who would become its next owner. He found Peter Boustead and his staff constructing a bonfire of files and papers on the lawn.
“The difference between the Germans and the British,” Boustead said, “is that they burn books and we burn memos.”
“While we Jews just burn.”
Boustead brushed a hand across his hair. It was grayer than when Dan had seen him last, only a week earlier. “Light her up, Dickie.”
A pale young diplomat in shirtsleeves and suspenders struck a match and lit the bonfire. Boustead stepped away from the heat. “Even if it rained, this stuff would burn. Dry as dust, you know.” He looked up into the blue sky and tugged at his collar. “Führer weather. As with everything else about the rotten sod, it makes you uncomfortable. Come with me, Herr Ambassador.”
He led Dan into the great hall of the embassy. Big enough to hold six hundred guests at grand balls given in better times, the Baroque room was now piled with the luggage of the departing British diplomats. “It’s like Victoria Station after the arrival of a boat train. Probably would’ve been moving out of the embassy to a new location soon enough anyway. This place is no longer suitable. They’ve built up the bloody Hotel Adlon to five stories above us. Leaves no light in the garden and the cooking fumes from the damned hotel kitchens make all our offices smell like the inside of a Brownshirt’s boots.”
Boustead headed for a corner away from the windows and leaned his tall frame into an alcove. Dan realized that the diplomat wanted to pass on some confidence, so he sidled into the space between the elaborate moldings.
“Your Shmulik gave me a fill-in on Herr Hitler’s ultimatum to Israel, after your prime minister left Berlin yesterday,” Boustead whispered.
For once Shmulik had acted at Dan’s request. The British had to be made aware of the pressure Germany was putting on Israel. He wanted London to understand why Ben-Gurion, of all leaders, would be silent about the onset of the war.
“We must secure as many Jewish lives as we can,” Dan said. “That has to guide our policy. Germany’s Jews are at even greater risk now that war is under way, and the war also brings Poland’s Jews into danger. Not to mention those in Czechoslovakia and Austria.”
“Quite. Of course I passed that along to London. I have our response to give to you now.”
Dan waited. If Boustead had good news, he would’ve spilled it a lot quicker than this. His hesitation was unnerving.
“Mister Chamberlain has an ultimatum for you, too,” Boustead said.
“Your prime minister appeased Hitler for years,” Dan snapped, “but for us he has no patience?”
“I rather think his patience is all used up. No fault of yours, I’m afraid. But there it is.” Boustead watched the porters lift a leather chest and heft it to the door. “Israel must join the Allied cause at the earliest opportunity.”
“But that means abandoning the Jews of the Nazi-occupied countries. We need German cooperation to get them out.”
Boustead frowned hard. “Should Israel fail to join the Allied cause, Britain will—at the earliest opportunity—reoccupy Palestine. That is, Israel.”
“You’d invade us?”
“Have to protect the Suez Canal, you see. If Hitler were to get to Palestine—to Israel—before us, it would be a perfect jumping off point for an invasion of Sinai. We don’t have a major force in Egypt to defend the canal. We’d have to divert troops there from India— troops that are currently designated to move into Iraq and Persia to protect our oil interests. No manpower, you see.”
“I can guarantee Israel’s support in a covert sense. But we must maintain the appearance of neutrality.”
“Problem is, dear chap, that Prime Minister Chamberlain isn’t a foreign policy man. And now that he’s been drawn into the war, he’s being forced to take a firmer line all over the place. He’s already named Mister Churchill to the cabinet and, as you know, Winnie was someone who opposed any accommodation whatsoever with Herr Hitler.”
The porters returned. They picked up a tea chest and shuffled across the floor.
“Mister Churchill won’t allow action against Israel,” Dan said. “He is a longtime supporter of the Zionist cause.”
“Up to a point, old chap.”
Dan had known enough Englishmen in Palestine to understand that “up to a point” was their polite way of saying you had the wrong end of the stick entirely. “So now we have two ultimatums.”
“I think my old Latin master would insist that you actually have two ultimata. But I see that you’ve got the message.”
One of the porters stumbled and the tea chest hit the floor with a thud and the sound of shattering china. The porter scratched his head.
Boustead looked sadly at the tea chest. “There’ll be trouble when the ambassador hears about that,” he muttered.
Chapter 20
The roundups came a few days after Hitler delivered his ultimatum to Ben-Gurion, in one of the poor neighborhoods of Berlin where Jews forced out of their original homes by joblessness and persecution now clustered. The SS followed Gestapo agents into the tenements and dragged away any Jew who had previously emigrated and subsequently returned to the Reich. Such people were automatically designated as aliens, even if they had come back to Germany years earlier, like the Polkes family.
Frantic phone calls alerted embassy staff to the situation. Dan saw the roundups for what they were—an indication of what was in store for Germany’s Jews if Israel didn’t obey the Führer’s command to remain neutral. He and Shmulik hurried out of the embassy and headed for Friedrichshain, but they were too late. They found weeping women and stunned men gathered in the courtyards of the apartment building where Arvid and Bertha Polkes lived, but no sign of Anna’s cousin and her husband. A dozen other Jewish families had been taken from the same street. Dan gathered their names and promised he would inquire with the SS.
Shmulik drove him to the Central Office for Jewish Emigration, but the guard on duty told him Eichmann wasn’t there. And all the while Draxler tailed them, leering at the suffering of this detested people. Smirking whenever he caught the ambassador’s eye.
Outside Eichmann’s office, Dan slipped back into the passenger seat of the car and Shmulik turned the ignition. Behind them, Draxler’s Mercedes purred into life again. They rolled along Kurfürstenstrasse and turned nor
th for the embassy.
“The Old Man doesn’t know what to do.” Shmulik’s words were tinged with something close to disgust. He knew what to do.
The ultimatums from the Germans and the British. The ultimata, Dan corrected himself. “He’ll figure it out.”
He watched the quiet streets as night closed over Berlin. The war in Poland was going well, according to German reports, but the people of the capital weren’t celebrating. They knew this was different from the easy victories in Czechoslovakia and Austria. In a sense, Dan thought, the Berliners faced their own ultimatum from the madman who led them, just as Israel did. They must triumph, or he would consign them to the flames.
Shmulik shook his head. “In the old days he would’ve known what to do right away. But now he’s a prime minister. It slows you down, that kind of responsibility.”
“You’d rather we didn’t have our state?”
“I’d like him to delegate a certain amount of authority.”
“To whom?”
“In this case, to me.”
“Because you know how to handle Hitler’s ultimatum and the British ultimatum?”
Shmulik changed gears angrily. The BMW jumped and Dan rocked forward in his seat.
“Advise me then, Shmulik,” he said.
“You’re making fun of me. I’m serious.”
“So am I. Here are the options. Tell me which you’d pick. We do as Hitler demands, and we can keep bringing Jews out of Germany. And out of Poland, Austria, Czechoslovakia. Or we do what the British want and in return, they won’t invade Israel. But Hitler will still hold in his power the lives of millions of Jews and we’ll have no chance of getting them out and giving them refuge in Israel.”
Shmulik took the car over the Landwehr Canal, a sneer on his face.
“Come on, smart guy, if you’ve got it figured out, let’s hear it.” Dan spat his frustration out along with his words.
“I’d order the killing of Hitler.” Shmulik’s voice was firm and low. “That’s what I’d do if I were Ben-Gurion.”
