Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  Kunde shook his head at the childish futility of it all. And this at a time when working men were grubbing around for food to feed their families. One of Kunde’s comrades, from his early days in the Ludwigsburg Communist Party, had been on the Hunger March at Darmstadt. When the march was attacked by the police, many of the Comrades were clubbed to the ground. And there they stayed, too weak from hunger to stand again. They lay where they had fallen until they died from starvation.

  And still the Nazis successfully deceived the working man. Ordinary workers were flooding to join the SA. ‘We have lost,’ Kunde thought, there in the doorway. ‘And what is our reaction to defeat? We produce windy newspapers and scratch the shit-bourgeois posters half off our own buildings.’

  A certainty crystallised in him that night. It had been coming for some time: The head must be cut off the dragon, only then will the dragon die. Kunde saw the way forward, saw it with great clarity. He would take action, and he would do it alone – as he had always done, as he always needed to do.

  He would kill the new Chancellor of Germany, Adolf Hitler.

  Chapter Two

  When Hitler had been appointed Chancellor of Germany, the Nazis celebrated with a late-night torchlight procession through Munich. Glaser and his wife, Lotte, stood at the window of their flat in Galeriestrasse. The children, thankfully, were in bed.

  You could hear the celebration coming for ages before you saw anything. There were shouts and whoops of jubilation from the crowds in the street and rhythmic, machinelike chanting: Heil-Heil-Heil. Then the local Nazis marched up Theatinerstrasse, on the far side of the Hof Garten, singing their Song of Triumph. They sang in that peculiar, jerky style the SA had adopted – tinny and robotic:

  And now comrades all, has come the time,

  That round the land, the bells of victory sound ...

  Chains of slaves that long our arms bound,

  Shatter under hammer blows around,

  And joy in all hearts rules, in this our time.

  Glaser recognised some of the troopers, in their brown shirts, their faces shiny with triumph in the torchlight flames. Some were neighbours – Herr Göscherl, the butcher, for one. But he knew most of them from court. Petty criminals, extortionists, pimps and thugs were now bossing Germany. He and Lotte stood together, not quite touching, until the procession had stamped its way past, and the last of their burning wood torches were out of sight.

  Glaser silently, bitterly, blamed himself for not ‘nailing’ Hitler while he had the chance, over the Geli murder. Lotte, knowing exactly what he was thinking, had silently squeezed his arm.

  *

  So what was to be done about it? The Munich Social Democrats were meeting at their Stammtisch at the Café Heck, a lively, spit-and-sawdust watering-hole in Galeriestrasse. The Heck was conveniently situated for Glaser, being just along the street from where he lived. But sometimes, Glaser thought, as he struggled through the slush on the pavement, close destinations were more of a problem than those more distant – when at least one could be dropped off at the door by a cab. Fortunately, Lotte had just bought him a new cane, ebony with a gold top – very stylish.

  A wave of depression washed through him. This meeting he was struggling towards. It was all so futile. What could they do?

  He knew there would be talk of a strike, this evening at the Heck. There were already protest strikes in Lübeck, up north, over the illegal arrest of their Jewish Social Democrat Deputy, Julius Leber. The massive Lübeck Machine Works was paralysed, although this had not brought about Leber’s release. At least not yet.

  In Berlin, the Social Democrats had organised a demonstration, in the Lustgarten.

  The party leader, Otto Wels, had given an address. There had been quite a good turnout, by all accounts, despite the rain. The Nazis had let them go ahead. If it had been the communists, they would have smashed it. Does that mean the Nazis think the Social Democrats aren’t even worth attacking?

  Glaser arrived late at the Stammtisch. The other Social Democrats were already seated on iron chairs round the rough wooden table, chatting, and drinking foaming steins of the sweet Paulaner beer. There were about a dozen of them. But a place had been kept for him, and Erich Rinner had waited for him before starting the business of the evening.

  As an apologetic Glaser took his place, his cheeks burning in the sudden warmth of the café, Rinner rapped the table with his knuckles and began to make his case. He was one of the youngest men there, in his early thirties, but he spoke confidently, demanding attention.

  ‘The communists have called for a general strike, to bring Hitler down,’ Rinner told the Social Democrats. There was an expectant silence round the table. Rinner had a few communist posters, sent to him, he told the Social Democrats, by a local communist leader called Willi Bohn. They were passed round the table. Glaser ordered a glass of the Heck’s mediocre Riesling, lit a pipe, and studied the communist offering:

  MASS STRIKE!

  HITLER IS CHANCELLOR OF THE REICH

  The President of Germany, Hindenburg, the Social Democrat presidential candidate, the Reichsbanner and the Trade Union leaders have named their ‘opponent’ Adolf Hitler, as Federal Chancellor. Hitler has created a government of fascist counter-revolution ...

  There was a lot more of it, but Glaser stopped reading. The communists had lumped the Social Democrats in with everybody else responsible for Hitler becoming Chancellor. A murmur of anger round the table told him other Social Democrats had the same reaction. As he looked up, he was amazed to see Ascher Weintraub making his way toward him.

  Glaser himself had mentioned this evening’s meeting to the old art dealer, but he had not expected him to come. Weintraub was a rank-and-file Social Democrat. He had never turned up to a meeting of the leadership before – but then Adolf Hitler had not become Chancellor before.

  As ever, Weintraub was dressed in the suit that was slightly too small for him, tie jauntily askew. He sat with an audible kvetch and ordered a beer and orange juice mix called a Radlmas.

  When it came, he held Glaser’s gaze, with that look of quizzical amusement of his, as if there was nothing he hadn’t seen, and nothing he couldn’t see through. Glaser shrugged. It was a gesture of helplessness. He felt a surge of love for the old man. And then a dreadful unease, which he did not understand.

  Meanwhile, Erich Rinner was speaking again, raising his voice to cover the disquiet the communist poster had caused. ‘The communists are on strike in a little place called Mössingen, in Swabia.’ Rinner’s voice rose even further against the roar of drinkers at other tables. He looked at Glaser, because he came from Swabia. ‘Do you know it, Gerhard?’

  ‘Mössingen? Yes, Erich,’ he called up the table. ‘I used to go there for summer holidays with my parents, as a boy.’

  Rinner shot him an affectionate look, before turning back to the meeting. ‘Their general strike has lasted for three days now,’ he said. ‘Amazingly for such a tiny place, they have no fewer than three textile factories – called ...’ he read from the handwritten sheet, ‘Pausa, Merz and Burkhard.’

  There was some laughter round the table, at the rustic-sounding names. Then Wilhelm Hoegner spoke. He had left the running to Rinner, but the strike was in his constituency. He took up the baton:

  ‘Between them, these factories employ 1,200 people,’ Hoegner said. ‘They are all solidly on strike. The farm co-operative is also on strike. If we give them support, others will join in. We can snuff out the Hitler Chancellorship before it gets going. There are only two Nazis in the Cabinet, after all, apart from Hitler. Just Frick and Göring.’

  He looked hard at his colleagues. He did not have to tell them that Chancellors come and go – some had lasted a matter of weeks. ‘Our chances of success are good. What do you think?’

  Glaser had been shaking his head while Hoegner was speaking. He knew more about communist strikes in Swabia than he was prepared to let on. He had received a letter from his elderly mother that morning. O
ld Frau Glaser had watched, at daybreak, as Ludwigsburg’s communists had tried to stop workers going into the Bleyle factory, on the main Hindenburgstrasse. Some workers had listened, and joined the communists at the factory gates, but most had pushed past and gone in to work. As soon as a worker joined the strike, one of the unemployed ran into the factory to take his place.

  Glaser took his pipe from his mouth and poked it at Hoegner. ‘Wilhelm, the communists read their policy off pastoral letters from Russia, which preach the destruction of social democracy. We must have no truck with them.’ Glaser banged the table with his fist. And then, slowly, emphasising every word. ‘They-do-not-support-the-law.’

  Julius Zerfass was nodding agreement, a gesture which made his brown hair flop over his eyes: ‘We Social Democrats embody democracy,’ he said. ‘We should oppose Hitler via our excellent deputies in Parliament, where we will undoubtedly win the argument.’ Zerfass gave a nod and a flashing smile at Hoegner. ‘All we have to do, is sit back and wait for Hitler to mess it up,’ he went on. ‘After Hitler, the next Chancellor will be a Social Democrat, you mark my words. Meanwhile, we don’t come down to their level. I say no to strikes and no to the Reichsbanner.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Glaser said. He had always been against the Reichsbanner – the Social Democrat armed fighters.

  ‘Sadly, we have been left no option but to defend ourselves, by any means available,’ a Post reporter, Edmund Goldschlag, said. ‘Even if that means supporting illegal strikes.’

  ‘But Wilhelm Frick has assured us that all National Socialist measures will have their basis in legality,’ said Zerfass

  ‘Wilhelm Frick is a Nazi,’ Ascher Weintraub murmured to himself.

  The art dealer, his usually amiable face drawn and tense, glanced across at Hitler’s Stammtisch. It was in the top right-hand corner of the narrow Café Heck, so the Führer could sit with his back to the wall – he was terrified of assassination. The table was empty now; the new Chancellor was back in Berlin. But the old Jew looked at him anyway, giving the merest shake of his head, and the smallest sigh, as if at the impossibility of explaining anything to anyone.

  ‘Co-operation with communists doesn’t work. Who should know that better than me?’

  The baritone voice, from the bottom end of the Stammtisch, boomed off the walls and crashed off the low ceiling of the café. It belonged to the mouldering man-mountain that was Erhard Auer. Despite being a diabetic, Auer was drinking heavily. Glaser went misty-eyed as soon as the old volcano spoke.

  Auer was a living history of the Social Democrat Party. He had been a Deputy during the Councils Republic. During the course of a long career, he had been shot, beaten up and had his home wrecked by both communists and Nazis. Only the Nazis had assaulted his wife, however. There was something typical about that.

  Glaser sipped his warm Riesling – he was the only one round the table drinking wine. He ran his hand over his beard. It was obvious the Social Democrats were not going to back the communist call for a strike. Rinner and Hoegner, the main supporters of help for the communists, were now silent. Glaser had won the argument. He had got what he wanted, but he took no joy from it.

  The politics was at an end; small talk bubbled forth. After all, it was Fasching – carnival time – the biggest, wildest celebration of the year. A roar of laughter burst out round the Social Democrat Stammtisch. The Tietz Department Store, opposite the Hauptbahnhof, was having a White Week; everything on sale was white. One of the Münchener Post reporters was joking about his impending white bankruptcy – his wife had been there so often.

  Ascher Weintraub had had enough of the levity. He gave Glaser a sad smile. ‘Goodnight, Gerhard,’ he said, softly, and slid away unnoticed, like a shadow.

  When Glaser thought back to that evening, he remembered only Weintraub. He pictured the cultured old gentleman as bordered in black, like the heavy black outlines round a Max Beckmann portrait. Glaser never saw him alive again.

  Part III - Spring 1933

  Chapter One

  On his first return to Munich as Chancellor, Hitler was at a private Party entertainment called At the Gallop, at the theatre in Gärtnerplatz. He was in the stalls – middle seat, row six – the seat he always had. His companion, Ello von Hessert, was in the President’s Box in the Upper Loge. Hitler could not be seen in public with a woman, because his bride was Germany and his exhausting work schedule was supposed to leave no time for a private life.

  For the occasion, Ello had chosen a black dress, wide skirted, with two gold clasps on the pink shoulder straps, set off by a single string of pearls. Her long hair was pinned by a gold clip.

  Flanking her, on the red-plush bench, were her friend, Henni, and Henni’s father, the Party photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. They had been deputed to take care of her until the evening was finished. Then she would be driven to Hitler’s apartment, where she would be the only guest.

  On the stage, a naked woman representing Diana the huntress was straddling a real shot deer. Earlier items had included a striptease artiste from Turkey, dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils, and Zeus as a swan circling a near-naked Leda.

  Heinrich Hoffmann gallantly tried to distract Ello with pleasantries, as he had been doing all evening. Ignoring the photographer, she looked up at Eugen Neureuther’s domed painted ceiling.

  Henni Hoffmann, to Ello’s left, had a new pageboy haircut. She wore a dark-bluejacket, to set off one of her daring short skirts, and red silk shoes. As usual, she wore hardly any jewellery – just a simple gold cross at her neck. The Hoffmann girl was being tediously waspish. There had been a series of digs about Ello’s lack of make-up, though Henni knew perfectly well make-up antagonised Hitler.

  It was not, Ello knew, that Henni wanted Hitler for herself – though God knows she told the story about Hitler trying to kiss her at the Hoffmann Christmas party often enough. It was just that she regarded Hitler as, in a general sense, hers: She had known him even longer than Ello had. She first met him when she was eight. He had bought her her first pair of skis. He had held her hand at her mother’s funeral and told her she must learn how to hate.

  Henni sensed she had gone too far; there was the usual quasi-apologetic retreat. She smilingly whispered a compliment in Ello’s ear – something insincere about her Jean Desprez perfume. Meanwhile, the striptease music blared, the men roared and stamped in rhythm, the swan Zeus returned and had sex with Leda.

  Ello looked away and glanced at Henni. She had a lovely heart-shaped face, Ello thought, but fretting about her bony, flat-chested figure drove her to flirt too much. There was that picnic at Lake Tegern, before Geli was killed – Henni insisting the girls undress behind a bush, where she knew perfectly well Hitler and the other men could still see them.

  Ello remembered, too, the three girls sunbathing naked, when a cloud of white butterflies landed on Geli. It was as if they knew, and were trying to protect her. Ello blew her lost best-friend a kiss in her mind.

  As the show was finishing, the chauffeur, Schreck, appeared in the box in his black leather coat with the collar turned up, looking, to Ello, like a larger, fiercer version of Hitler. He had the same moustache, the same staring, deep-set eyes and small-lobed ears. Only the cleft in his chin was not shared with ‘Uncle Dolf’, as Ello called Hitler.

  Schreck was carrying her silver-fox coat, passing it from one hand to the other, as he scratched his chilblains over it. Ello grimaced, snatched the coat from him and put it on, evading his attempt to help her on with it.

  Then Schreck ushered her down flights of curving stone stairs, muttering to himself about how the Nazi Bonzen – big-wigs – in the audience were losing touch with ordinary people.

  There was nothing of the servant about his manner. When the shrewder members of Hitler’s entourage, like the architect Speer, wanted to put an idea into the Führer’s ear, they whispered it first to Schreck – being careful to keep in the chauffeur’s good books in order to do so.

  Outside, Schreck strode a
head to the Mercedes, parked in the square. It was cold and damp; Ello could see her breath in front of her face. Schreck held the car door open for her. Sitting on the back seat was the huge figure of Hitler’s adjutant, Wilhelm Brückner.

  She got in beside him, blushing in the dark as her fur coat slid her toward him, on the leather of the seat. At private moments at the picnics at Lake Tegern, with Geli, Henni, Emil Maurice and Hitler, Brückner had kissed her, passionately, more than once. She had let him, every time. But he had not followed it up, in any way. Now, however, he was silent, bolt upright, not acknowledging her, as Schreck eased the heavy Mercedes out of the square.

  The chauffeur drove fast through the darkness over freezing slush, parallel to the Isar.

  They turned right and crossed the river at the Luitpoldbrücke. Ello glimpsed Fischer’s statues, allegories of the four Bavarian tribes, silhouetted in the darkness. Schreck then slowed, as the road narrowed at the Angel of Peace monument, commemorating the victory over France at Sedan.

  At the intersection with Ismaninger Strasse, the road was blocked off by concrete bollards, leaving a narrow gap patrolled by black-uniformed SD guards. From here, Prinzregentenstrasse was sealed off as far as the square – a new security measure since Hitler became Chancellor. The guards gave a Hitler salute when they read the number plate, and stepped aside. The Mercedes cruised silently in the darkness the rest of the way.

  As Ello and Brückner got out of the car, a youth was pasting a Social Democrat poster on the brickwork, by the door to Hitler’s apartment. Ello smothered a smile. Brückner reached inside his greatcoat for his radio.

  Pretending to twist her ankle, Ello threw herself against him and screamed. The adjutant caught her in his arms and held her. His face lowered to hers. She shut her eyes, but he pushed her upright, then radioed Hitler’s Personal Protection Guard, on the ground floor of the apartment building. They came running out of the guard room, one of them ripping the poster from the wall, but the youth had had time to make his escape.