by Michael Dean
They all played the dominant role with him. And they were all much the same to him, except for Hartmut Plaas. Apart from his mother, Hartmut Plaas was the only human being Walther ever truly loved. The source of exquisite both pleasure and pain, daily emotional agony.
*
On August 4, 1914, Walther was driven to Tempelhof by Josef Prozeller . Prozeller was the only servant he ever employed. He was an East Prussian, plucked by Walther from the rumbling bowels of the massive AEG factory at Berlin-Wedding. This was Walther’s only practical step toward the abolition of the proletariat, which he advocated at such length in theory, in his extremely successful books on political economy.
Prozeller, a lifelong factory worker, had been selected for his discretion, his turned down moustache, his monkish manner, his capacity for justified gratitude and his largely latent homosexual make-up.
He was severely underpaid. He was also permanently kept short of funds to buy food. As soon as the vast and vastly cheap department store KaDaWe opened near the Memorial Church, Walther insisted on the servant buying everything there.
Walther was not mean but he regarded luxury, against which he constantly inveighed in his books, as a wasteful distraction. It was wasteful of human resources on a national level – according to him - and a distraction on a personal level.
Walther always claimed he could manage on 300 marks a month but had to keep up appearances. That was one source of the day-to-day friction him and Prozeller experienced. Another was Prozeller’s following of the old German custom of keeping interior doors locked. It irritated Walther.
The servant, a sly fellow, continued to do it purely to irk his master, something
Walther never comprehended.
As late as July 1914, Rathenau had been among those hoping that financial considerations alone would avert a European war. He had read Ivan Bloch’s Is War Now Impossible? and Norman Angell’s The Great Illusion, arguing that the great powers were too intertwined in terms of trade and too mutually dependent to go to war.
In the back of the car, he opened his copy of the Deutsche Zeitung and read that England had declared war. He went pale in the face. Suddenly cold in the August heat, he told Prozeller to stop the car and drive back home.
A world war was the overthrow of the gods to whom, before this time, the world had prayed. Rathenau had warned in an article in the Berliner Tageblatt that war meant inflation, a stock exchange crash, above all isolation for Germany from the community of nations.
Rathenau hated the war ethically, he hated it morally. He may not have wanted a war but as there was one looming, he decided he would do his utmost for his country. He was far from being alone in this aspiration.
By the end of the week, Rathenau had contacted Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial
Chancellor, who had an adjacent villa to Rathenau’s house in Königsallee, both facing the rolling park known as the Grunewald.
Over coffee and pastries at Bethmann-Hollweg’s villa, Rathenau informed the Imperial Chancellor that England was economically in a position to sustain a long war. Germany, however, would be on its knees within weeks as the English blockade -instantaneously imposed - would create chronic shortages of raw materials, notably the saltpetre essential to make bullets and explosives.
The war, Rathenau told his neighbour, would indeed be over by Christmas but not in the way that his countrymen so joyously believed. And not only because of the English blockade. Years of corruption and chaos in army procurement would cost Germany dearly.
Rathenau showed Bethmann-Hollweg a cutting from a Berlin newspaper. It was an advertisement: ‘Army contracts secured under the most favourable terms by a gentleman who has the best possible connections with the authorities in question.’
As Bethmann-Hollweg winced at the cutting, Rathenau suggested that a leading industrialist should be put in complete charge of obtaining all the raw materials to sustain a lengthy war. That leading industrialist, Rathena suggested, should be himself. With no flicker of hesitation, Bethmann-Hollweg told him to speak to the Minister for War, General von Falkenhayn.
A telegram arrived at Rathenau’s villa the next day. Rathenau’s appointment with Falkenhayn at the War Ministry was for 8.30 the next morning. That was a Sunday.
Chapter Five
Josef Prozeller stopped the car outside the squat block of the Ministry of War at the
corner of Leipzigerstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse. The convertible top of the car was up, so as soon as the rushing wind of movement stopped, the still heat hit Rathenau. His nostrils were assailed by the familiar stink of Berlin drains, even worse since the construction of the Südwestkorso, despite the attempt to build a French style boulevard which had been completed more than six years ago. The very name Berlin means swamp.
Sitting stiff in the back in his Sunday best, Rathenau clutched his briefcase to his chest, bringing his thoughts, which were set down within it, to order. His eyes were gleaming.
The sentries outside the War Ministry saluted. Uniformed reception staff in the marble vestibule knew who he was. They knew he was expected. A uniformed lieutenant, no less, escorted him to Falkenhayn’s office. The small signals, the all-important small signs, could not have been more promising.
Erich von Falkenhayn, a Prussian-born general and minister was wearing mufti, a tweed jacket with a cravat. As he shook hands and sat down, Rathenau took in the familiar narrow-shouldered slight figure, the brushed crew cut, the moustache vainly flicked up at the ends and waxed.
He knew Falkenhayn, in a superficial way, socially. He knew everybody in a social way, but he had never talked to the general at length before. Now everything indicated that, despite the mobilisation of the German army for war, the Minister for War had plenty of time for him.
He also clearly wished to get down to business. Even the clipped routine offer of refreshment implied the negative response it received.
‘As you see, my desk is empty,’ Falkenhayn began with a twinkle and a slight smile.
‘My great work is done; mobilisation is complete and not a single complaint has come in.’
Rathenau’s eyes met Falkenhayn’s. Message received. The military machine was now running Germany.
‘As a Jew,’ Rathenau said, embarking on a rehearsed opening, ‘I wish to play a full part in the war against Germany’s enemies. As you know, Jews are enlisting in their hundreds to show their loyalty to the Fatherland, ready to die for Germany.’
‘Indeed so.’ Falkenhayn paused. ‘How bad is the raw materials situation?’ he asked, bluntly. ‘More than just the saltpetre presumably, though that’s bad enough.’
Rathenau nodded. ‘It certainly is. We need twenty-five million kilos of saltpetre a month.’ He mimed permission to consult his notes. Military permission was given with a crisp economical nod. Rathenau made something of a show of unbuckling and opening the monogrammed black leather briefcase on his lap.
He glanced at his notes, which he knew by heart, then spoke in a flat monotone: ‘Our supplies of essential metals are almost exhausted. That is copper, zinc, aluminium and nickel. The shortage is most urgent with regard to copper, where we have around 130,000 tons less than we need. If we do not find new supplies, we can produce bullet cases for another three months. Four at the most. At the end of that time your army will have no bullets to fire.’
‘At the end of…So, how long do you expect this war to last, Dr Rathenau?’
‘Years certainly. It could go on until 1920.’
Falkenhayn gave another curt nod. ‘Alright. You spoke of metals. What of other
raw materials for the war?’
‘The situation is comparable with all chemicals, jute, wool, rubber, leather, lead, flax, horsehair, linen…’
‘And in England?’
‘Better off in every respect. Do you want the figures? I have estimates for us alone,
or with a comparison with England.’
Falkenhayn’s small features creased in a grimace. ‘Thank you. I t
hink I have the picture. So what do we do about it?’
His dark eyes gleaming bright with the evident and growing success of his enterprise,. Rathenau pulled out two copies of a plan headed ‘The Supply of Raw Materials in Wartime: Principles and Practice.’
The ever resourceful servant, Josef Prozeller , now serving at both the Grunewald town villa and the country place, Freienwalde, had typed the plan out overnight using fiddly carbon paper for the duplicate copy. His hope of extra payment for this work had not been met.
At ten pages, Rathenau considered the plan thin to the point of skeletal. Not to Falkenhayn, it seemed. He glanced at the document and made a moue of distaste.
‘Summarise.’
Rathenau embarked on a pellucid summary without once referring to the document.
‘We need what you might call a three-pronged attack.’
Falkenhayn gave a wry nod at the military metaphor. Henpecked at home, he was
enjoying his unorthodox Sunday morning, away from his wife and daughter and the
albeit temporary monotony of being a Minister for War with absolutely nothing to do at the start of a war.
‘We need to set up Joint Stock Companies for each of the commodities. By that I mean one for all metals, one for textiles, one for jute, one for rubber and so on.’
Falkenhayn frowned. ‘And these companies…?’
‘Of course they will not attempt to take control of the commodities themselves, storage, transport and so on. That would require a massive bureaucracy, surely doomed to failure.’ Falkenhayn’s frown lifted. ‘No, the companies will direct each raw material to where it is most needed for the war effort. Not ownership but right of disposal. The companies will also make sure that production of say, metals, is concentrated on metals for essential war purposes. The production of luxury goods will be banned.’
Falkenhayn did not attempt to mask how impressed he was. Rathenau was speaking with the security of a man who had been publishing articles and books on political economy for over a decade. The essence of what he was saying was to be found in The Criticism of the Age (1912) and The Mechanism of the Mind (1913), his two books published by the esteemed Fischer company, plus the many articles published in the magazine, Zukunft, notably, The Physiology of Business.
Falkenhayn glanced down at Rathenau’s report on his pristine desk, turned its pages
over, then started to make notes on a pad in tiny handwriting. Rathenau waited. There was silence in the office. Birdsong could be heard. You could almost hear the last beams of sunshine from the old world falling, something Rathenau the artist was fully aware of.
‘Go on,’ Falkenhayn said when he had finished making notes.
‘The second prong of the attack is to find as many substitutes for scarce raw materials as we can.’
‘Saltpetre…’
‘Yes, that is the most urgent, or we may as well surrender now. That will be my first priority. I am an industrial chemist, you know, as well as a physicist.’
Falkenhayn looked relieved at the offer of hope and help over the supply of bullets. He nearly said ‘Thank you’ but contented himself with moving on to the next point.
‘Staffing?’ said Falkenhayn crisply. ‘Who do you want?’
Rathenau sighed, a release of tension. ‘From AEG, above all young Moellendorf.’ He suddenly felt like an old man. The brilliant engineer Wichard von Moellendorf was, at thirty-three, fourteen years his junior.
To Rathenau’s surprise, Falkenhayn was clearly aware of that. ‘He’ll need military exemption. We’ll arrange that.’ He made a note of Moellendorf’s name. ‘Go on.’
‘Professor Georg Klingenberg, as my deputy, then Oskar Schwarz, Ehrenthal …’
‘Who?’
‘ Richard Ehrenthal. I know him from the Aero Club.’
‘Alright, we’ll check him.’
Falkenhayn was writing the names, which, again, apart from Ehrenthal, he gave the
impression of knowing ‘Hugo Geitner…’ the general murmured, once again with that mild inflection between a statement and a question.
Rathenau winced. In a blink, Papa Emil was present in the room. Papa Emil was
looking over his shoulder to make sure he was doing his school tasks properly. Hugo Geitner had been Rathenau’s private secretary at Bitterfeld, the one reporting directly to Emil.
But the point was, if Falkenhayn was recommending (or insisting on?) Geitner, then Emil must have reached Falkenhayn before the meeting.
‘Yes, Geitner,’ said Rathenau, recovering his composure. ‘Hugo Geitner. Yes. Good man.’
Emil had asked to see his son at the family home in Viktoriastrasse that coming evening. Now Rathenau understood why.
Falkenhayn gave a tight-lipped smile, which made the skin round his eyes crease.
For the first time Rathenau thought of him as attractive. A wild thought pounced on him, Falkenhayn would report to Emil. No, that was absurd.
‘Dr Rathenau?’
Rathenau realised he had been wool-gathering and had missed what Falkenhayn had just said. ‘Sorry, what was that?’
‘Do you want to break for refreshment?’
‘No! Of course, Hugo Geitner. Yes’
Another smile. ‘Very well. I was just thinking that we will need to appoint one of our people…’
Rathenau had anticipated this. In his dealings with the military, he would prefer to
have someone literally at his side who knew the military machine. ‘That is welcome,’ he said, truthfully enough.
‘Colonel Walter Oehme,’ murmured Falkenhayn. ‘Nominally, he’ll be head of department, but …’ he hurried on at the sight of Rathenau’s face, ‘that is a formality. I chose Oehme myself. He’s an administrator, not an empire builder. He’ll be a good servant to you.’
This was astonishingly frank for a Prussian Minister of War, even on a Sunday morning out of uniform.
Rathenau said ‘Thank you, General,’ with some warmth.
‘Oh, one more thing.’ Falkenhayn’s badly acted casualness put Rathenau on his guard again. ‘We really must have some senior staff who are not from your own company, from your AEG, you know.’
‘Not some. One.’
That was bold. Almost mutinous. Rathenau had surprised himself. It was the first flash of the farouche, occasionally hubristic, style he briefly developed at this time of his soaring success.
Falkenhayn gave a tuneless whistle.
‘We can’t have too many people at the top,’ Rathenau said.
‘I accept that.’
For nearly an hour they batted names backwards and forwards, Rathenau continuing to be surprised and impressed at how well-informed Falkenhayn was proving himself. In the end they settled on Heinrich von Nürnberg from Siemens and Halske.
‘So you’re happy with that?’ Falkenhayn said, registering Rathenau’s smirk.
Rathenau was happy with Nürnberg’s appointment, but that was not the reason for the smirk. He had just pulled off the biggest coup in any negotiation, which is not simply to get what you want, but to get it without showing your opponent what your real aim was.
Rathenau knew perfectly well that there would have to be representatives from other major companies in his new organisation. He was amazed to have kept it down to one.
‘We haven’t yet got a name for this organisation of yours,’ Falkenhayn said, in that tone Rathenau was getting used to, which made every utterance sound like a polite enquiry after the health of one’s maiden aunt.
Excitement spurted in Rathenau. He could hardly speak. It was happening. He was running the German war economy. ‘I had not really considered a name. What do you think?’ he managed to say.
‘We thought, the War Raw Materials Department, ’ Falkenhayn said. (It was known as the KRA - Kriegsrohstoffabteilung - in German)
Rathenau was fighting for breath. ‘Fine,’ he said softly. ‘ KRA.is fine.’
‘Good. And of course there are some exclusions to the responsibili
ties of your new department.’
Rathenau tensed. ‘What are they?’
‘Relax Dr Rathenau.’ The tight-lipped smile again. ‘Food.’
‘Good!’
‘And any form of liquid fuel.’
‘Yes, of course. You appear to have thought of everything.’
Falkenhayn had indeed thought of everything, except perhaps a salary for Rathenau for his work as head of the KRA. He never offered one. Rathenau never asked for one, so he never got one.
He had another question, though. ‘When…?’
‘When can you start? As of yesterday, as we say in the army. You’ll have a credit line of twenty-million marks plus five million in cash for the department. An Enabling Act will be put through the Reichstag this week, putting you on a legal footing. But you don’t have to wait for that to pass.’
‘I don’t?’
‘No. Come along with me. I’ll show you the rooms we have reserved for the KRA’
With a small man’s trim economy of movement, Falkenhayn jumped up from his chair, leading the way with short sharp strides to the door. Rathenau struggled with his still unbuckled briefcase then lumbered in his wake like an ocean liner being pulled by a tug.
Falkenhayn led the way down the back stairs to the first floor. ‘Here we are.’
Rathenau felt a pang of acute disappointment. Although situated at the heart of the
Ministry of War, which was ideal, his new empire, now nearly two minutes old, consisted of just three rooms. Falkenhayn flung open the door of each of them in turn, as if conducting a search for a fugitive.
‘You’ll have to share a secretary with Colonel Oehme, at least at first.’
Rathenau almost laughed at this open attempt to keep tabs on him, on a day-to-day level. ‘How many clerks?’
Falkenhayn coughed. ‘Initially four.’
‘Four!’
‘That’s…come and see me if you need more.’
‘We will!’
