Nuremberg

by William F. Buckley, Jr.

  “There’s no problem about turning in the return passages we’ve paid for?”

  “We have open tickets for you and Sebastian. Nothing suspicious in that. My own return booking is for September 28th. I’ll just...cancel it after I arrive. Maybe wait a few days.”

  “What have you done about our Heidelberg account?”

  “I didn’t check all the money out, not that we have that much in savings. But they watch that kind of thing. I withdrew 1,800 marks. A plausible amount — a month’s vacation, initial schooling bills for Sebastian. The Gestapo is thorough, but I can’t imagine they know that we have other resources. They wouldn’t know that Henrietta Chapin inherited a few stocks and bonds.”

  Annabelle sipped her drink and extended her hand under the table. “Darling, I hope you don’t have regrets. Mother was right: A general war is a real possibility. The Chamberlain government’s guarantee to Poland, that really did it — ”

  “Actually, Annabelle, the diplomatic scene has for a few weeks been pretty quiet — ”

  “ Pretty quiet ? I mean, His Majesty’s government promised in March to — what? Go to war , is the only way I can read it, and that’s how Mom’s State Department buddy reads it — if there’s a Nazi attack against Poland.”

  “Yes yes. But there’s no sign of any military strike by Hitler. The British declaration was five months ago. Hitler seems to have spent most of the summer going to operas in Augsburg and Bayreuth.” Axel tried to look hopeful.

  “Darling, I’m not, I promise you, I’m not going to analyze Hitler. And — you know — I was in favor of staying on here, hoping for the best, even after the seventeenth letter from Mother urging us to go to America, to go to her. But I was really scared after the birthday celebration. So Hitler was fifty years old on April 20th. The whole country goes crazy celebrating...and that military parade in Berlin! That made it look like he was preparing for a world war, never mind just Poland.”

  “ Don’t even say things like that , Annabelle.”

  She moved her head sharply to one side to avoid the cigar smoke snaking in from the table in front. She reached simultaneously for her purse. “Sebastian brought me this. He went this morning to Bismarck to say good-byes — the semester there is about to begin. Pauline showed him a poem being taught to first graders. Pauline has a sister in first grade. Listen — ”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  “Listen.” She spoke in a quiet tone, moving closer to the candle housed in the red-tinted glass. “This is a — I guess they’d call it...what? A poem? An ode? The first graders will be committing this to memory:

  Adolf Hitler is our savior , our hero

  He is the noblest being in the whole wide world .

  For Hitler we live ,

  For Hitler we die .

  Our Hitler is our Lord ,

  Who rules a brave new world .

  Axel hit his lip. “Awful. Terrible, terrible stuff. My own guess is that Hitler himself knows nothing about the lengths some of his worshipers go to. But on the big questions, the strategic questions, Hitler is a tough realist.”

  “Tough realists can make mistakes.”

  “But not on the scale you’re talking about, I’d judge. Invade Poland? With Great Britain pledged to defend it?”

  “Look, he’s got his eastern flank protected by the nonaggression pact with Russia. So what’s Britain really going to do to impede a Polish invasion?” Annabelle asked. “Introduce a censure resolution at the League of Nations?”

  “Let’s not talk about it, Annie. We’ve made our plans. Twenty-four hours — ” he looked down at his watch and smiled — “twenty- six hours from now we’ll be on the high seas, headed for New York City. It’s been fifteen years since we left — ”

  “On that terrible freighter.”

  “It was slow. But it was cheap. Fifty-five dollars. Which was about half the money I had in all the world.”

  “But you had a German-speaking wife — ”

  “Yes, darling, your German is as good as mine — ”

  “And a degree from MIT — ”

  “Yes. All that got me was the job in the casino here.” He smiled bitterly at the memory. “Between the time the gamblers put down a chip and the time they cashed it in, half their profit was inflated away.”

  “Weimar time.”

  “Yes, Weimar. The great Weimar Republic . The great postwar democratic fiasco, ten years of it. And I know — I know — it was Adolf Hitler who brought Germany together. And I voted for him.” He paused. “And it wasn’t until just a while ago I had the answer to the question, Would I do it again ?”

  “Not until Crystal Night.”

  “Not until Kristallnacht. And Kristallnacht was as recent as only ten months ago.”

  “But you knew, back in 1933, what his attitude was on the Jews.”

  “Yes, we all knew. So he was anti-Semitic. So was dear old Mom. So...who isn’t?

  “Axel, that’s silly, saying that.”

  “You know what I mean. I mean that we — the people who voted for him — didn’t think he’d go in for looting Jewish stores, that kind of thing.”

  “ That kind of thing ? Looting Jewish stores? You mean, burning down a hundred and ninety synagogues. Levying billion-mark fines on wealthy Jews. Declaring them an infidel race.”

  “Annie, let’s drop it. I’m German, your mother was Austrian. I love Germany, I have to hope that the...Fuehrer is — ”

  “Here today, gone tomorrow?”

  He had had enough. He changed his voice, changed the subject. “Yes...Annie, who will be meeting us in New York?”

  “I’m not sure. But Henrietta Chapin isn’t going to let us land with nobody at the dock to meet us. She may be there herself, though it’s a long trip from Phoenix. We’ll stay together a week in New York, show Sebastian the sights.”

  “You know what?”

  “ Bitte wiederhole . Say that again.”

  Axel paused, and then, “I think it would be nice if we took a day and went to Cambridge. I’d like to see the old haunts, and maybe see whether Professor Schlosser is still around — I had a couple of letters from him in the early days. Nothing from him after you-know-who was elected.”

  “You-know-who wouldn’t like that, your friendship with him. I remember Henry Schlosser. I read his book.”

  “The first one? On the Versailles Conference?”

  “Yes. Illusory Peace . He was certainly prophetic. We’ve walked into that shaky postwar world he predicted.”

  “John Maynard Keynes said the same thing — “

  “ — differently. Keynes is always different. But he hasn’t taught Roosevelt how to bring us — us Americans, Axel, me and Sebastian — “ she winked at him affectionately, “out of the Depression.”

  “Maybe he should look into some of the economic policies of you-know-who.”

  Annabelle rapped him on his knuckles. “Cut it out, Axel. Anyway, we ought to be going. It’ll be exciting tomorrow, but also long.”

  “Yes.” He signaled to Zoti.

  “I’ll get the umbrella,” she said.

  She came back and found Axel standing with Zoti, talking.

  She caught the little nod of his head...Yes, she could hear him saying, he would come by the Olden just as soon as he returned from New York. Their hands were clasped. She extended her own hand, and Zoti lowered his head for a little farewell kiss, which she gave him, brushing back her full head of hair.

  Axel was silent on the walk home. Back in the apartment, Annabelle walked to the side room to check on Sebastian. Good night, Kitten , she thought.

  Axel went into his little study, turned on the desk lamp, and closed the door.

  He opened the envelope Zoti had slid into his hand. He held the letter under the light.

  The stationery was that of the Waffen SS on 34 Ilsenstrasse.

  The letter was addressed to Herr Axel Reinhard, giving no street address. It read: “Herr Reinhard: You will meet me at 1000 exactly
at the Rialto Hotel lobby on Frankfurtstrasse. I will identify myself. You will be unaccompanied. No one need know about our appointment. Heil Hitler.”

  It was signed, “Ernst Gradler.”

  Under the signature appeared the words, “Hauptmann, Geheimes Staatspolizeiamt.”

  Chapter Three

  August 31 , 1939

  Axel tossed in his bed.

  What indiscretion might he have been guilty of? If any? Boarding the Europa for a trip to America with his — American — family was not itself an indiscretion. He was permitted, by German law and custom, to leave Germany, provided he didn’t take more than the allowed sum of German marks with him.

  Why would the Gestapo call him in? His cash withdrawal was legal and reasonable.

  He had confided to no one his plans to leave Germany permanently.

  What about his political sentiments? Had there been any public expression of those of them that were negative? There was no —

  The night in Vienna reached his memory, pounding on it.

  *

  Not long after voting in 1933 for the National Socialist Party and endorsing its early economic policies, Axel Reinhard had begun diverting any talk away from the question of whether he approved or disapproved of Hitler’s various policies. He didn’t discuss Hitler’s demand that Germany be permitted to rearm, or analyze out loud the hectic rearmament program. Nothing about Hitler’s initiative in forming the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan, or Hitler’s apocalyptic confrontation with the British and French followed by the cannibalization of Czechoslovakia, or Hitler’s denunciation of the Polish government and assertion of Germany’s right to the Danzig corridor. Nothing about Hitler’s progressive impositions on the Jews, and the near-genocidal outbreak against German Jewry on Kristallnacht. He did not comment on Hitler’s covert approach to Stalin, or the sensational disclosure — just last week — of the nonaggression pact. On all these questions Axel could not be enticed into comment. There was only the one exception, Vienna, 1938.

  He looked over at Annabelle, soundly asleep at his side. He touched on the pocket flashlight he kept by his bed and looked at the alarm clock on the bed table. It was slightly after four in the morning.

  Yes, there was that one evening in Vienna, Sunday, the 27th of February, eighteen months ago.

  Axel Reinhard was in Vienna on business for Heidl & Sons. Franz Heidl had dispatched him to conclude arrangements with Donneheim, AG. Heidl would turn over, for an appropriate fee, the innovative designs drawn up by the Heidl firm for their much-admired Untergrin bridge, crossing the Danube from the old town to the new, bustling factor) district. Axel was to dine that final night with Eric Eisenstadt, the Donneheim partner in charge of their bridge construction in Vienna. The two engineers had spent a pleasant week together in Germany exploring the bridge plans and sketching out the necessary modifications for the Austrian model.

  But it wasn’t Eisenstadt who met Axel at Vienna’s sprawling railway station. It was, instead, a junior associate of the Donneheim firm. Fie introduced himself and conveyed the apologies of his superior. “Herr Eisenstadt has canceled all his appointments. He will be leaving Vienna for London in a few days. Arthur Seyss-Inquart is arriving tomorrow from Berlin to take charge of their country. He will be our Minister Interior, and he is not — you are probably acquainted with his record — exactly friendly to Jews.” Axel knew that. Everyone knew that in the three preceding days, Hitler had contrived the virtual annexation of Austria, his great Anschluss.

  Taken to the Innsbruck Hotel, Axel checked in and deposited his bag and briefcase in his room. He proceeded down to the bar-restaurant for the highly seasoned Paprikasuppe he much enjoyed. He would listen to the widely anticipated speech by Adolf Hitler proclaiming the “union” between Germany and Hitler’s native Austria.

  His voice came in over the radio. He was speaking in the Kroll Opera House. Ever since the great fire of 1934, the Opera House had served as the Reichstag.

  This afternoon, Hitler spoke what seemed endlessly, but with the hypnotic eloquence that overpowered so many listeners, near and far. Axel was yet again stunned by the force of the Fuehrer’s rhetoric and drawn by the magnetism that radiated from the large radio unit that sat on the elevated shelf adjacent to the bar. The customers were silent. Beer and brandy and coffee were untouched until after the uproarious climax. Then the shouts rang in, “ Sieg Heil ! Heil Hitler !” They began then to talk; everyone at once, it seemed.

  That was on Sunday afternoon. At 2000, Axel met for dinner at the hotel with Donneheim’s substitute host, the Austrian engineer deputized to take over Eisenstadt’s commission. Ludwig Heller was in his thirties, tall and athletic in appearance. He wore glasses that reached back over his ears but gave good clearance to his clipped brown hair.

  “Well, it’s been quite a day,” Heller said, calling the steward over to order wine. Axel agreed that it had certainly been a momentous day.

  Axel drank heavily, and when time came for dessert, the diners had finished a bottle of Riesling and a robust Burgundy. Axel put in for branch’ with his strudel. He was left tired from the journey and itching with exasperation over the twin experiences of his day, the Anschluss speech and the elimination of his partner. Eisenstadt would have to flee his native country for the sin of being Jewish. And Austria had lost her nationhood, degraded — however willingly — to provincial status by the hypnotizing ambition of a single...He abandoned his caution and, fueled by drink, set his thoughts free.

  “What’s the matter with you Austrians? You feel anything Hitler wants he can have because he was born here and absorbed his racist ideas here in Vienna?” Axel did not stop there. He confided to his fellow engineer with some passion other Nazi policies he resented or teared the consequences of. His dinner companion hinted at his own misgivings about the Third Reich.

  It was later that night that Axel renewed his solemn pledge never, ever, to comment again on Reich policies.

  Might Ludwig Heller have reported on his conversation ? Would word of the indiscretion have seeped in through Austrian National Security to the Schutzstaffel? The SS had ears everywhere. When, two weeks later, Adolf Hitler drove triumphantly into Vienna, consummating resoundingly his plans, long laid and well prepared for him by indigenous agents, the SS gained access to everything in Austria of conceivable use to the state security apparatus.

  *

  Was Vienna the reason the Gestapo wanted to see him? That morning? He had been awake for hours, and there was light enough already to let him view the hands of his wristwatch. It was six and he could hear Sebastian stirring. As usual, the boy, treading lightly in the kitchen to avoid waking mother and father, was making a great racket with the refrigerator and the toaster.

  Or could it be — conceivably? — a mark of preference? Was the Gestapo, apprised of Axel Reinhard’s forthcoming visit to America, perhaps seeking something from him? Something he, Axel, could do? A mission?

  But who on earth did Axel know in America who could be of any use to the Nazis? Nobody! It had been years since he was there and when he left in 1924 it was as an impoverished, freshly anointed young civil engineer. What could Axel Reinhard conceivably do for the Reichsfuehrer?

  “You didn’t sleep well, Axel . You tossed and turned.” Annabelle was back from the kitchen.

  Axel turned his head, as if to ward it all off. “Must have been the excitement over our — little vacation.”

  “Sebastian has already left. He’s started off on his social rounds — “

  “He’s off early.”

  “Your son — ”

  “Our son.”

  “ — our son likes to stay in touch with all his friends.”

  “Especially Pauline. Have you met Pauline?”

  “Yes. Very attractive, blue-eyed fourteen-year-old, daughter of Brigadefuehrer Hauswarth. The local head of the SS.”

  “Well. I’m sure he keeps busy. Which reminds me, I have to drop back to the office. I told Heidl I’d be in ab
out ten. Forgot to brief Jutzeler on a Rohrplatz Tower detail.”

  “But you will be back when they come for the trunk?”

  “I wouldn’t let the trunk go off without my blessing, Annie. And without Sebastian’s soccer ball.”

  Chapter Four

  August 31 , 1939

  Axel thought to make a little show of life.

  He would not arrive at the stipulated place at exactly the stipulated time. To do so would suggest an apprehensive punctuality. He would arrive late. Not very late, perhaps seven or eight minutes late.

  When he approached the corner of Abel and Frankfurtstrasse he slowed his pace, stopping, even, to peer into the windows of the Weinhandlung, which advertised an early harvest of 1939 French Bordeaux wines. It was six minutes past the appointed hour when finally he walked into the faded Victorian lobby of the Rialto Hotel, where Hitler had spent the night after the Niedersachsen celebration of his 1933 appointment as Chancellor. Carrying in his pocket a folded copy of the morning issue of the Hamburger Nachrichten , he looked about the formal, wood-paneled lobby, designed for commerce in the days of the Kaiser, for an empty chair. With an offhandedness perhaps studied, he sat down and pulled out the newspaper. The voice directly behind him said, “Please follow me, Herr Reinhard.”

  He turned and looked up at a stout man with graying hair. The SS representative wore a cotton-knit gray suit, a dark blue shirt, and a thin black tie. A small swastika, on a lacquered background, adorned his tie clasp. Captain Gradler, who introduced himself as having issued the summons, was blue-eyed and clean shaven. His hair had probably been blond. A thin scar stretched from close to his right eye diagonally toward his ear. His features were regular, his nose and lips full. The smile of greeting was genial. He spoke with a pronounced Prussian accent, rolling his r’s almost lasciviously. “We are going to a little room upstairs. You will be so good as to accompany me?”

  Axel nodded and, wordlessly, followed him to the elevator. The operator was directed to take them to the fourth floor. Axel followed the officer down the shopworn, faded blue hallway to Number 430. Captain Gradler took a key from his pocket and opened the door. The room was stripped of its bed and bureau. There was only the desk, facing the door. Behind it, the window, one of its shades drawn. Three straight-backed chairs faced the desk. Gradler proceeded to the chair behind the desk and, with a courtly tilt of his hand, motioned Axel to one of the other chairs.