“That is my camera,” the photographer protested.
Goering reached out and took the plate from his unresisting fingers, dropped it on the floor, and trod on it as well.
“You should ask for permission before taking pictures of people,” he said, and turned round. “Come,” he said imperiously to Berkeley and Lockwood and Frederika.
Berkeley looked at the police inspector to see if he was going to do anything about the fracas.
Mulder shrugged. “It is forbidden to take photographs on police property,” he said. “Besides . . . Herr Goering . . .”
Berkeley followed Goering outside.
“Sheep,” Goering remarked, surveying the large crowd still milling about outside the station. “They are all sheep. But even sheep need to be disciplined, eh, Colonel Townsend? I have a motor car.”
He strode forward again, and the people parted before him. Some cheered, others booed and hissed, one or two shouted curses. But now they had been joined by several of the brown-shirted men with the swastika badges, all large and aggressive, and these cleared a way to the waiting car, repelling one or two people who tried to get at them with some violence.
While still the police, watching from the doorway of their station, did nothing.
“Reminds me of Sabac,” Lockwood muttered.
“Only not quite so efficient,” Berkeley suggested.
Then they were in the car and being driven away, while the Brownshirts trotted beside them. Harry and Lockwood sat in the back with Frederika, while Goering was in front beside the driver.
“I haven’t properly thanked you for bailing us out,” Berkeley said. “It was very decent of you. But what about all those others? I imagine most of them are actually members of your party. Are you going to bail them, too?”
“No,” Goering said. “We do not have the funds for that. They will spend the night in gaol, and be fined tomorrow. They are used to it.”
“But you do have the funds to provide bail for Lockwood and myself.”
“Certainly.”
“Why? We do not belong to your party.”
“You may decide to join. But no matter. It is the Fuehrer’s business. He wishes to speak with you.”
Catastrophe
Goering drove them to a rather splendid looking house not far from the town centre.
Here there was a drive, and several parked cars, while the house itself glowed with light, and issued a good deal of noise. The front door was opened for them by a butler, and in the hall they were greeted by a tall, strikingly handsome blonde woman.
“How good to see you,” she said, taking Frederika’s hands to draw her forward for a kiss. “And these are your two English guests?”
“Colonel Townsend and Mr Lockwood,” Frederika said.
“How good to meet you.”
“It is very good of you to receive us, Frau Goering,” Berkeley said.
The woman regarded him from beneath arched eyelids for a moment, then burst out laughing. “It is my pleasure.”
Goering had been handing the butler his coat and hat and stick. Now he joined them. “The Countess von Rosen,” he explained.
“Ah . . .” Berkeley was acutely embarrassed.
“You may call me Carin,” the countess said, linking her arm through Berkeley’s and drawing him towards the double doors leading to the drawing room. “Hermann met me when he was living in Sweden, after the War. And he persuaded me to return to Germany with him. He is a very persuasive man.”
“Don’t believe a word of it,” Goering said. “It was Carin persuaded me to come back. And her decision to come with me. We are going to be married, as soon as her divorce comes through.”
“If it ever does,” Carin sighed. “My husband is being difficult.”
She did not appear to find it the least strange to be discussing her intimate affairs with two total strangers.
The double doors were thrown open, and they entered a room in which there were some twenty men and women. Most of these were very well dressed; Berkeley did not think any of them had been at the meeting, with the exception of Hitler and Hess, and, of course, Goering himself.
Hitler had spotted them, and hurried across the room, taking both Berkeley’s hands in his to squeeze them in welcome. “So Hermann got you out of the clutches of the police, eh?”
“For which I must thank you,” Berkeley said.
“Not at all,” Hitler riposted. “It was my pleasure.”
“And those Communists thugs did not harm you?” Carin von Rosen asked.
“Not in the least.”
“It was still a terrifying ordeal,” Frederika said. “Can not something be done about those people, my Fuehrer?”
Hitler gave a genial smile. “I’m afraid that will have to wait until we have obtained power, my dear. But come, Colonel, you must feel like a drink. Champagne?”
A tray was presented and Berkeley took a glass. He waited for Hitler to do likewise, but the tray was immediately withdrawn and offered to Lockwood instead.
“I do not drink,” Hitler explained. “But I like my guests to do so.”
“And this is your home?” Berkeley asked. He was definitely confused about the events of the evening.
“No, no. It belongs to Hermann. Or should I say, Carin? It was bought with her money. She has a great deal of money. Have a canapé.”
Another tray was being presented. Surprised at being hungry, as he had eaten only a few hours before, Berkeley took an angel on horseback. Once again the tray was whipped away.
“Don’t tell me you don’t eat, either?” Berkeley asked, attempting humour.
Hitler did not smile. “I do not eat meat.”
Berkeley studied the little man. Compared with the flamboyant Goering, he looked like a junior clerk; Berkeley put his age down as early thirties. With Hess and Goering both in their twenties, this was obviously a young party, in every way. He wondered if that was promising, or sinister?
But that they should be led by this man . . . yet he had the evidence of his own ears and eyes that Hitler could suddenly emerge from polite gentility into raving demagoguery.
And no one in England had ever heard of him. He was certainly not on the list of recommended interviewees.
“Let us talk,” Hitler said, and led him across the room and through an inner door. He might not live in this house, Berkeley realised, but he certainly knew it well, and used it as his own. No one attempted to interfere, as Berkeley was shown into a study-cum-library, and gestured to a leather armchair. Hitler sat opposite, one leg carelessly thrown across the other.
“Frederika tells me you have been sent to Germany on a fact-finding tour.”
“I have come to Germany to collect material for a book on the situation here.”
“Yes, yes. I understand that is your cover story. But you are actually working for the British Government, are you not?”
“Even if I were, Herr Hitler, I would not admit it.”
Hitler gave one of his genial smiles. “But you have just done so. You have come here, Colonel, because the British Government conceives that there is a strong possibility that the Communists will penetrate into the heart of Europe, and who knows, in the not too distant future wind up standing on the shores of the Channel. The French have always believed in left-wing solutions to their problems.”
“I would have said Pilsudski’s victory outside Warsaw has put an end to that speculation.”
“Do not believe it, Colonel. Communism, as practised by the Bolsheviks, is like a tide on the shore. It comes thundering in. Then it encounters a sea wall, and it flows back out again, apparently defeated. But then it tries somewhere else, where the beach defences are not strong. Then perhaps it encounters a large and apparently immovable rock. It may batter the rock, certainly, but it prefers to flow round it and behind it, and undermine it, until it collapses perhaps of its own weight.”
“An interesting simile,” Berkeley agreed.
“Will your government let this happen
?”
“We have our own left-wing problems in Britain,” Berkeley told him. “But even if we didn’t, there is no possibility of the British Government taking direct action against any political party in Europe, certainly at this time, when we are still recovering from, and paying for, the War.”
“You are paying for the War?” Hitler demanded. “We have been presented with the biggest reparations bill in history.”
“At the moment, it is still us who are doing most of the paying,” Berkeley said. He had no intention of submitting his personality to this man.
Hitler stared at him for several seconds, so intently Berkeley almost expected an outburst. Then he waved his hand. “That is of no matter. I quite understand that you British are tired of fighting. We Germans are also tired of it, but the more perceptive of us realise that we simply cannot walk away from a situation just because we do not like the look of it. Certainly when it is in our own back yard. But the British have a long history of subsidising others to do their fighting for them, have they not? I was not just an artist, you know, Colonel. I have studied history.”
“I didn’t know you were an artist,” Berkeley said. He thought it unlikely.
“I painted portraits, in Vienna, before the War,” Hitler said proudly.
“What were you doing in Vienna?”
“Austria is my home, Colonel.”
“But . . . you became a German citizen?”
“No, I did not. I am an Austrian citizen. This is convenient.”
“Oh, quite. If the German authorities ever start to breathe too heavily down your neck, you can always nip across the border.”
“How perceptive you are. But tell me, why do you suppose the German authorities would ever wish to, as you put it, breathe heavily down my neck?”
“Well . . . one supposes they may get tired of riots like tonight.”
“There are riots of that nature every night in Munich. In all Germany. We are drifting from the point. Am I right in my analysis?”
“Historically, yes,” Berkeley conceded. “But history, although it does repeat itself, never follows quite the same paths. It depends too much on local conditions and situations. Firstly, there is no guarantee that any government supported by mine would not turn out to be worse than a Communist one, and secondly, and more important, we no longer have the money available as when, for instance, Pitt was stirring up the continent against Napoleon.”
“Money can always be found when it is necessary to do so,” Hitler asserted. “Or indeed it can be done without altogether. Germany has no money, yet is being called upon to pay billions in reparations. I do not hold this against you. It is the work of the Jewish traitors in Weimar, and the vengeful French. They will have to be attended to in due course. It is the here and now that interests us. Germany, brought together into one great nation by Bismarck, is about to fragment all over again.”
Berkeley frowned. “Are you serious?”
“It is inevitable. Those fools in Weimar do not know how to run a country. And you must remember that Germany is a federal state. Within living memory it was a federation of independent states. Shattered as we are at the moment, called upon to find money we do not have, those independent states will again seek independence. This will not be a permanent condition, of course. Germany is intended by fate and nature to be one country, and that includes my own Austria, and all Germans living along our borders, separated from the Fatherland by Wilsonian absurdities. But it will take another Bismarck to bring them back together.” He paused, and stared at Berkeley.
Who reflected that Frederika had, after all, been quoting her ‘fuehrer’. While it was difficult not to smile at the idea of this little man considering himself as a possible second Bismarck.
“That is a very interesting concept,” he remarked. “But if, as you say, Germany fragments, won’t that make a Communist takeover more likely? Or certainly possible?”
“That depends on the separate states,” Hitler asserted. “Here in Bavaria, we have the opportunity to create a strong unit. Only a matter of two hundred years ago Bavaria was a powerful state, courted by the French and the Austrians. It will be so again.”
“Under the Kahr fellow, you mean.”
Hitler snorted. “The man is a fool.”
“I see. So you visualise an independent Bavaria, as one, if perhaps the most powerful, of a group of independent states, with an elected . . . king?”
“Good God, no. The age of kings is past, my friend. With respect to yours, of course. No, no, Bavaria will be ruled by a president.”
“Of course. Who will be elected. May I ask, Herr Hitler, if those people in the hall tonight were the total of your party strength?”
Hitler gave him another of his penetrating glances. Then he got up, and began to pace the room, hands behind his back. “Most of them.” He stopped, suddenly, and turned violently towards Berkeley. “You think it is all a joke.”
“I have not said so,” Berkeley said evenly. “However, while I do not know the exact population of Bavaria, I think you will have to agree with me that the votes of fifty-odd people are not going to get you elected.”
“Who said anything about being elected? Only failures are elected. Was Bismarck elected? Was Lenin elected? Was your own King George elected?”
“King George does not run the country,” Berkeley pointed out. “Prime Minister Lloyd George does that, and he was elected.”
“Bah! He was chosen as Prime Minister because the rest were incompetent. You mentioned Pitt just now. Was he elected? He was selected by the then king.” He chuckled. “Who was mad.”
“Nevertheless, Pitt could only be prime minister if he maintained a majority in the House of Commons,” Berkeley argued. “And even Lenin can only remain leader of the Soviet Union as long as he also maintains a majority of support in the Duma.”
“There are ways of obtaining such majorities,” Hitler said. “Without descending to democracy. As Lenin has demonstrated. Again, we are leaving the point. If Bavaria is to achieve any stability, unlike the rest of Germany, it needs a strong leader, and not one who can be removed by the whim of the electorate. That strong leader will achieve power by a coup de main, and he will rule, maintain order, and raise the prosperity and the prestige of the state, by decree.”
“And you see yourself as that man.”
Hitler stopped walking and faced him, his right hand thrust into his jacket, as if he had been Napoleon. “I am that man.”
“And you will seize power with fifty supporters?”
“The number of supporters is really irrelevant, to carry out a coup d’état, providing we seize the centres of power,” Hitler said. “But we will have more than fifty, certainly. We are working on it now. And we are speaking with certain military gentlemen who think like us . . . but I don’t think I should go into that right now.”
“I entirely agree,” Berkeley said. “I think you have said far too much already. I am supposed to be seeing von Kahr tomorrow. Suppose I repeat this conversation to him?”
Hitler shrugged. “He knows my programme.”
Berkeley scratched his head. “Kahr knows you intend to take over the Bavarian state by force, and rule as a dictator?”
“I have made no secret of what I intend to do.”
“And he has done nothing about it?”
Hitler smiled. “He thinks I am mad.”
Which indicates that Kahr may not be quite as absurd as people think, Berkeley reflected.
“Besides,” Hitler went on. “It is what he intends to do as well. It is a matter of who gets there first.”
“And suppose he does?”
“Oh, he will. He already controls the civil administration, courtesy of Weimar. That he has not yet acted to declare an independent Bavaria is because he lacks the will. But he will do so. His associates will force him to it.”
“And what will happen then?”
“I think it is most likely that, as in Hamburg last week, the Government w
ill send in troops to restore the status quo.”
“And you do not think they will succeed.”
Hitler gave another of his disarming grins. “I think it very probable that they will succeed. As I say, I do not think Kahr has the resolution to lead a breakaway movement.”
“And where will that leave you?”
“Precisely where I am now. I have broken no laws. That fracas tonight was started by the Communists. My people, yourself included, did no more than defend yourselves.”
How coolly he includes me in his people, Berkeley thought.
“It will then be a matter of picking up the pieces,” Hitler went on. “That will be our task. But I have no illusions as to the enormity of what lies ahead. Money . . . I can raise money. Power . . . I can create power. International recognition . . . that is what I need, Colonel Townsend. From you, and from your government.”
“Just let me get the picture absolutely straight,” Berkeley said. “You anticipate a period of civil strife here in Bavaria, from which you will emerge triumphant, as the, well, dictator, I suppose for want of a better word. And then, you would hope in the course of time, to unite all Germany, into one country.”
“The Third Reich,” Hitler said enthusiastically. “It will be the Third Reich, following the Reich of Otto the Great, and the Reich of Bismarck.”
“And then?” Berkeley asked.
Otto the Great, as he recalled his history, had, a thousand years before, established a Germany hegemony over Europe, and indeed, recreated the Holy Roman Empire, which had existed for nearly another nine hundred years before being destroyed by Napoleon. Bismarck had not aimed so high, only that Prussia should dominate a united Germany, and that German power should influence Europe.
“And then,” Hitler said dreamily. “We shall set about creating the ultimate state.”
“May I ask what with? Oh, I know the German people have a history of industrial and military success. What they have always lacked in sufficient quantity are the natural resources necessary for national greatness. You have no oil, you have no rubber, you have no bauxite, right at this moment, and for the foreseeable future, you are going to be bankrupt . . . you cannot even feed your own people.”
The Quest Page 8
