Presidential Mission

by Upton Sinclair

  No, there was more to the man than crude animal greeds; there was training, there was culture. Lanny’s thoughts moved on to the Prussian spirit, with its Ordnung und Zucht. A hard, grim people, living on a not-too-fertile plain, with no natural defenses against enemies—such as the English had, and the Swiss—they had to depend through the centuries upon their stout hearts and keen, strong swords: Blut und Eisen, as they called it. They were the Spartans of this modern world; the Bavarians and other Germans were the Athenians of the same period, and the Prussian Bismarck had welded them into one empire and started them off at world conquest. They wanted to do what the English had done three centuries ago, and they refused to listen to any argument that the times had changed and that the nations now must stay as they were put.

  That was the way to explain Hermann Wilhelm Göring, Field Marshal, Air Minister, Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, Head of the State Secret Police, President of the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia, Chief Forester of the Reich, und so weiter, as the Germans say. He was a social product, a child of Prussian Kultur, of the German Weltanschauung, their way of looking at the world. The natural greeds of childhood, instead of being restrained and disciplined, had been cultivated and encouraged, sanctified under the name of patriotism and pride of race. Acquisitiveness had become the fulfillment of destiny; jealousy had become protest against die Einkreisung, the restraints imposed by neighboring peoples; vanity had become the glory of a master race, destined by nature to subject all others to its will. Lanny would have enjoyed sitting down with the fat Hermann in some hour of leisure and tackling him on this thesis. But instead, it was his job to feed these fires of greed, and to call their victim alter Wunderknabe and Urdeutscher—original German, founder-German, German from way back! This crude American jesting gave Hermann delight, and even Rauberritter wouldn’t annoy him too much. He would take a lot of “kidding” from an American that no German would ever have tried twice.

  III

  Der Dicke pressed a button and roared for his lunch. Lanny guessed that he was roaring louder because there was company; he was acting the part of Hermann Göring, the world’s terror, the German Falstaff, Unser Hermann der Bauch, the darling of all hearty feeders in the Nazi realm. Liveried servants came running, cleared the center table, and presently appeared a little wheeled cart with silver dishes and cutlery, and a steaming silver tureen full of chicken noodle soup. The host beamed, spread a large napkin over his decorated bosom, and went to work on the food; he sounded like a suction pump emptying an oil sump.

  It was the first square meal that Lanny had had in Berlin, and there was no reason why he should not gratify his host as well as himself. He wasn’t doing any work for the German Volk, but there was no chance that the Volk would get any of this food if he passed it up. So he enjoyed a platter of boiled turbot and potatoes with cream sauce, and then as much of a Rebhuhn mit Specklinsen as he had room for. “These come from Rominten,” said Der Dicke, and added: “I have the head of the stag that you shot there, and some day I’ll send it to wherever you are living.”

  “I hope it may be here,” replied Lanny. “I have my eye on a little place in the Danzig district, but I decided to wait until the war is over.”

  The guest had to decline a second helping of fruit pudding. He had emptied two glasses of wine and refused any more, and now he turned down his Branntwein glass before it was filled. “I cannot compete with you, Hermann,” he said. “I should have to be carried out.” It was the robber baron’s idea of a fine compliment.

  After the table had been cleared, the guest mentioned that he had a lot of news that the Führer told him to pass on. The Reichsmarschall replied that he had a staff conference now due. “But tomorrow morning I am taking you to Karinhall, and there we’ll have plenty of time. Arrange with Furtwaengler and I’ll send my car for you.” Then he added: “Have you been having a pleasant time in Berlin?”

  This may have been ironical, and Lanny replied: “How can I, when you have closed all the good cafés and night clubs?”

  “I have insisted that one be kept open for my officers. Tell Furtwaengler to take you to it.”

  “Do you think your officers would relish the company of an American?”

  “You won’t have to be introduced. I’d like you to be able to tell the outside world that we have not been intimidated by their bombings.”

  Apparently Der Dicke meant that seriously, for when the General-Major came into the room he said: “Take Herr Budd to the Fledermaus tonight, and put it on your expense account.”

  “I had been intending to invite Furtwaengler,” put in Lanny, “and introduce his wife to the Fürstin Donnerstein, who is my hostess.”

  “Bring them both along,” ordered the commander. “What you have been doing for the German people is worth a lot of money which you have never taken. Surely they can entertain you once.”

  Lanny was taken to the General-Major’s office, and made two appointments, one for a staff car to call at seven that evening, and the other for Göring’s own car at ten the next morning. He telephoned Hilde and told her to put on her gladdest rags. Furtwaengler said he would phone his wife; and Lanny could imagine the heart palpitations of that lady, the most ardent social climber he had met in Berlin, and that was saying a great deal.

  IV

  Die Fledermaus is the title not only of an operetta but of a very expensive night club, with scarlet and golden bats all over the ceiling and walls. Here came what elegance and fashion was left in a Hauptstadt under bombs. It was perhaps the only place that was warm in all the town that night, excepting, of course, government offices and the residences of high Nazis. The ladies wore their evening gowns, revealing lovely shoulders and bosoms not suffering from undernourishment. Many of the escorts wore uniforms, but by no means all, and Lanny realized that this place must represent a black-market deal. Somebody had presented Emmy Sonnemann, Göring’s actress wife, with a diamond bracelet, or perhaps a whole stomacher of diamonds, and so this club was allowed to keep open, and Göring could whisper to his officers that it was a special favor he was doing for them. Lanny wondered if the venison he ate was from the fat Marshal’s hunting estate in Silesia, the Reichsjägerhof Rominten, which had once belonged to the Kaiser. Der Dicke had taken it over without a by-your-leave to anybody, unless possibly his old friend and Führer.

  The General-Major, in dress uniform, played host, and his wife, oh, such glory and such gorgeousness! Lanny wondered if she had borrowed these jewels from her relatives and friends, or if they were paste. She was entertaining a Fürstin, and while the Nazis publicly scorned and humiliated the old aristocracy, it was different when they met these exalted creatures socially. Hilde still had the “glad rags,” but no jewels—Lanny could guess that she thought it imprudent to let one of Göring’s henchmen see what she owned. She had put off her mourning, for it was polizeilich verboten in public, as being bad for morale. She had confided to Lanny that she would have preferred not to come; but she knew that he was doing her a favor, and perhaps—well, who could guess when anybody might need a friend among the Regierung? To have declined an invitation would have constituted an affront and made an enemy.

  So here was this haughty Dame, feeling as if she were attending a party given by her butler, or perhaps by the police captain of her district. “What on earth shall we talk about?” she had asked, and Lanny had told her to tell about her family and ask about Frau Furtwaengler’s; also, to ask about Frau Göring, whom Frau Furtwaengler had met once or twice, and about whom she would be delighted to talk. So there was no lack of elegant conversation, and presently Hilde was repeating stories about her fashionable smart friends just as if Frau Furtwaengler had “belonged” and had the right to know these intimate and sometimes risqué details.

  V

  There was a floor show, with singing and dancing, sexy but not too crude. The orchestra played no jazz, and Lanny gave the Nazis their due meed of credit; it was the one completely good thing he knew about them
. What astounded him were the comedians and their jokes, most of which were topical, and so many critical of the regime. For the past ten years there had existed in Germany a phenomenon known as the Flüsterwitz, the joke that no one dared tell publicly, but everyone whispered it to a friend whom he trusted, and thus it attained a circulation of tens of millions. Was there anyone in any German town who did not know the definition of the perfect Aryan, that he was as blond as Hitler, as slender as Göring, as handsome as Goebbels, and so on and on? Was there anyone who had not heard the story of the left-handed teacups—how Göring had told Hitler how much smarter the Jews were than the Germans, and had proved it by taking him into one china store after another, asking for a set of left-handed teacups. All the Aryans said they had never heard of such a thing; but the first Jew they applied to went into the back of the store, took a set of teacups and set them on a tray with all the handles turned to the left, and then produced them as a special treasure at a high price. Going out of the store, Göring remarked: “You see how much smarter the Jew was?” Hitler replied: “I don’t see that he was smart at all; he was just lucky to have that kind of set.”

  Now it seemed to Lanny that under the pressure of misfortune the Flüsterwitz had come out into the open, or at any rate, onto the floor of a leisure-class night club. There were no gibes at the Führer, but there were plenty at Göring and at Goebbels, and apparently nobody took it for Majestätsbeleidigung, not even the Number Two’s staff member and his super-elegant Frau. Werner Finck, the favorite comedian of this floor show, told how Göring and Goebbels were sent to Purgatory, where special punishments had been prepared for them. Die Nummer Zwei was handed one thousand new bright-colored uniforms, but no mirror; the Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda was presented with a thousand broadcasting stations, but no microphone.

  Then presently the comedian was telling about his side partner, who had been sent to prison for telling jokes about the Regierung; the judge had sentenced him to stay in prison until he had told all such jokes that he knew. “He has been there three months, and he’s still going strong.” The laughter of this audience revealed that they, too, knew many of the Flüsterwitze!

  So it went, about one aspect of the Nazi system after another. It was told that Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop’s idea of happiness was to have a suit of genuine English wool, and to be able to rub a real grease spot out of it! And then the story about the tiger that escaped from a traveling circus, and everybody was told to shoot the tiger at sight. One Jew remarked to another: “We had better get out of here!” When the other replied: “Why? We are not tigers,” the gag was: “Yes, but can we prove it to them?” And presently there were four comedians sitting at a table, presenting in pantomime an elaborate picture of grief and despair. One sighed, one groaned loudly, a third wiped the tears from his eyes; the fourth remarked: “Be careful, my friends, I beg you. It is not proper to discuss politics in this public place.”

  VI

  There came strolling into the Fledermaus a tall, solidly built Teuton in civilian dress, with a red face and a shaved head. He wore a collar that was a sort of trademark, at least, Lanny Budd knew nobody else in the world who wore one like it: round, smooth, and about four inches high, it caused the wearer to hold his chin high up, and gave the square head and knobby face the appearance of a rooster with his neck-feathers picked off. He saw Lanny and stared for a moment or two through his watery blue eyes; then he came over, bowing from the waist, something he couldn’t have done from the neck. “I beg pardon, isn’t this Herr Budd?”

  No chance to deny it; and anyhow, Lanny was curious about this old rooster, over whom he and his father had had many a good laugh. Lanny rose, saying: “How do you do, Dr. Schacht? Won’t you join us?”

  The one-time head of the Reichsbank was willing, so Lanny introduced him to the others, and a place was set for him. He ordered a meal—Lanny was amused to observe later on that he allowed the General-Major to take the check, and without much protest. Oddly enough, this great financier, who had shown Adi Schicklgruber how to manufacture several times as many marks as anybody had dreamed that Germany possessed, had himself a reputation for penuriousness, which had made him a target for the Flüsterwitze. He had been raised in Brooklyn, and his father, an admirer of America, had named him Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht. A charming person of no scruples whatever, he had climbed to the top of the country’s financial ladder; then he had been tumbled off, and when Lanny and Robbie had met him four years ago in Berlin, he had inquired as to the possibility of getting a chance to manage one of the big banks in New York.

  How he stood now Lanny had no idea, and surely wasn’t going to try to find out in a night club and in the presence of one of Göring’s aides. Nor did the American offer any hint as to the wherefore of his presence in Berlin, though he could be sure that the old rooster must have been puzzled about it. They listened to the floor show, laughed at the jokes, and made a few of their own. The ex-banker had a plate of ham with pickles and potato salad, and while he gobbled it greedily he remarked: “This may be some of my own; I am raising pigs now.” Lanny said: “It appears to be a favorite occupation of retired statesmen; Prime Minister Baldwin did it, I remember.” The money wizard replied: “It is obligatory upon all good Prussians.”

  When the party broke up, the Herr Doktor remarked: “If you have time to spare, Herr Budd, you might lunch with me.” Lanny explained that he was going out to Karinhall, but that when he returned he would telephone. To Furtwaengler, as they were being driven home, he remarked: “My father did business with him in the old days, and he came to New York frequently. Have you any idea what he’s doing now?” This, because in Naziland the Lord alone could know what any man’s status might be, or who was trying to cut whose throat.

  In the hallway of her palace, Hilde said: “I have had a delightful evening, Lanny; and I want to tell you that I am not going to spoil it by repeating my mistake of last night.”

  He answered as kindly as was safe: “Don’t worry about that, Hilde. It didn’t happen.” He didn’t make the mistake of touching her hand; instead, he remarked: “We have a saying in English that there is many a true word spoken in jest. Listening to those comedians, I kept wondering if that is the way they really feel. And the audience, that laughed so freely.”

  She answered with bitterness: “I won’t tell you how I feel. It would be putting a responsibility upon you.”

  He realized that this remark, made to a man who had a letter from Adolf Hitler in his pocket, was grim indeed. Not wanting to carry any such responsibility, he dropped the subject. “Get out of Berlin as soon as you can,” he advised. “It would be better in the Obersalzberg; you won’t freeze to death there, and you can meet terrible things here.” On that note he went to bed, and the Allies and the ladies mercifully allowed him a night’s sleep.

  VII

  Great day in the morning! Lanny opened his eyes to note sunshine streaming into his room; it was a fraud, however, without any warmth, and he dressed in record time and fled to the kitchen. There he had a hot drink, but he wouldn’t eat the food of these women; he knew, and so did they, that he was going to a house of abundance, and also of warmth. To the old servants, of course, Göring was a great man, Unser Hermann, and to visit Karinhall was an unimaginable honor. The two sisters appeared, but not the mother; she could not endure to meet an American, no matter how good a German he might be.

  Promptly on time the big six-wheeled baby-blue Mercédès drew up at the door. An orderly leaped out and rang the bell, saluted Herr Budd, and took his surprisingly light bags. The guest rode alone to the Residenz; then came the Reichsmarschall with a couple of his staff and a couple of civilians. Der Dicke, enormous in a fur-lined overcoat, looked pale and bloated at that hour; his flesh was unwholesome, and there were pouches under his eyes; Lanny felt certain that he had gone back to his drugs again. His greeting lacked ardor; but when Lanny told him what the comedians had said about him last night, he cheered up. A
pparently it didn’t matter in the least what they said, so long as they were not forgetting him.

  One of the civilians proved to be Doktor Bunjes—pronounced Boonyez—director of the “Franco-German Art Historical Institute” in Paris. That high-sounding title meant that he was Göring’s chief plunderer in the conquered land. He had recently issued an elaborate manifesto in answer to Vichy protests against the looting of the national art treasures of la patrie. Lanny read this while in Karinhall, and learned that objets d’art had to be seized because they might be exchanged for tanks or planes, though how the French could have managed this was difficult to see. Also, the French efforts to protect art works might become espionage; and most of the works being “safeguarded” were of German origin anyhow, or at least “under the influence of the German spirit.”

  The other civilian was the fat man’s “Curator,” a small chap with reddish hair and little dark eyes, very shifty. His face seemed familiar, and Lanny discovered that he had known him in the old days, when he had been a salesman for an art dealer, his brother-in-law, who happened to be a Jew. So Walter Andreas Hofer had become the head of the firm and had managed to impress Göring with his authority as an expert. Naturally he would look upon this American as a rival, and Lanny, who surely didn’t want to make a single enemy in Naziland, made haste to reassure both these gentlemen by agreeing with everything they said, praising their taste and judgment, and telling Göring that he was not merely Germany’s greatest judge of art works, but Germany’s greatest judge of art experts.

  Curator Hofer, Lanny learned, had refused to take any salary, but worked only on commission, and never since the art of painting had been discovered in the caves of early Aurignacian France had there been such an opportunity to get rich out of that form of activity. All that Herr Hofer had to do was to tell Göring that a certain painting was no good, and he could have the painting for his own and sell it; all that he had to do was to threaten to discover that a certain collection was good, and the owner of that collection would be ready to pay him a fortune to say that it was bad.