Nuremberg

by William F. Buckley, Jr.

  Axel thought it wise to make mention of the voyage ahead. “Captain Gradler, my family and I are sailing to New York tonight, so my schedule is a little crowded. What can I do for you?”

  “The end of summer is a fine time to sail. I sailed on a destroyer twenty — twenty-two — years ago. We held the Royal Navy to a draw, but then of course the United States came in with their formidable production machine, destroyer after destroyer.” His eyes sharpened. “When were you planning to return to Hamburg?”

  “I have reservations to sail from New York on September 28th.”

  “We know you have the reservation. But you have no intention of actually using it, do you, Herr Reinhard?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you know, Herr Reinhard, dissimulation only heightens suspicions.”

  Axels heart pounded. He strained to organize his thoughts, to say the least provocative thing. “I don’t understand you. My partners expect me back at the end of the month. I am taking some drafting material with me to work on a continuing project. My apartment is — my lease is — ”

  “Uncanceled.”

  “Yes. We rent by the month, with a deposit of two months.”

  “And you have not been in touch with the landlord, Herr Ausnitz?”

  “No. There are no changes in our arrangements with Herr Ausnitz. My wife will be delayed in returning, but we will keep our present quarters indefinitely.”

  Captain Gradler stood up and turned to the window looking out over the Frankfurtstrasse. He said nothing.

  Wei thought to expand on the matter of the lease and of work committed to Heidi, but a sixth sense stopped him. It would only make matters worse if, inexplicably, the Gestapo knew about his private plans. He took another tack.

  “You may know it, perhaps not. Six years ago I voted the National Socialist ticket.”

  “Yes. But you came to regret that, did you not, Herr Reinhard?”

  “What do you mean?” Axel spoke sharply.

  “We have in mind your outburst in Vienna on the day the Fuehrer announced the glorious annexation.”

  So the rat Heller had reported Axels diatribe to the new security officials in Austria. Axel hesitated a brief moment.

  “What I said in Vienna was only to register a personal disappointment over a single partner who felt he had to leave the country — “

  “You are opposed to the Fuehrer’s policies on Jewish criminals?”

  He would have to back away, by whatever means. “No, I understand those policies, but I confine myself, confine myself exclusively, to my work. In Vienna I was simply expressing disappointment at a very personal level, over the effects of the German-Austrian union on a friend, a civil engineer.”

  “Was that when you decided to abandon the Fatherland?”

  Gradler turned from the window, a smile on his face. He returned to his rotating desk chair, pivoting it first to the right, then to the left. He lit a cigarette. After an initial puff, feigning absentmindedness, he proffered one to Axel, who shook his head.

  Now Axel stood up and walked over to the abandoned fireplace. He said, wearily, resting his left elbow on the mantelpiece, “Captain Gradler, your suspicions are unfounded. Besides, my German passport permits me foreign travel. My wife and son have American passports — ”

  “Not quite accurate. Your wife and son have a single U.S. passport. And your son is under German protection. Because he is underage and a German-at-birth.”

  “I am not a lawyer. I am the boy’s father, and he has a U.S. passport.”

  “But your son is thirteen and subject to German protection.”

  Gradler drew a pen from his pocket, opened the desk drawer, and removed a sheet of paper.

  “Let me put it this way. You will not be leaving Germany tonight. You will not be sailing to America.”

  Axel moved back to his chair. “On what grounds would you detain me from leaving?”

  “It is as simple as that the Fatherland is taken up with great diplomatic events. The Fuehrer has decreed that all the resources of the nation are needed for the purpose of creating an impregnable defense. A civil engineer is a valuable national resource. Now — sit down, Herr Reinhard. There is, after all, no place for you to go, until after we have concluded our conversation.”

  “I will of course consult with an attorney. We have strong affiliates at Heidl — ”

  “I know that. And I don’t mind acknowledging that the Gestapo wishes to avoid...messy problems involving foreigners, involving your wife.”

  “My wife and son.”

  “Under German law your son has the right to renounce citizenship in this country when he is eighteen. In the case of young Sebastian, that would be...in 1944. But you must believe me,” Gradler ground out his cigarette, “we at the Gestapo are perfectly willing to cooperate with you in avoiding a diplomatic imbroglio. To avoid this, we are willing for you to board the Kuropa with Frau Reinhard and the boy. But immediately before the ship sails out, you will come down the gangway — ”

  “My wife would never stand for that — ”

  “Your wife need not know you are not aboard.”

  “How inconceivable that we would not be...arm in arm at the moment of sailing!”

  “At the critical moment you will simply slip into the crowd. She will assume you have pulled away for a few moments. Perhaps,” Gradler chortled, his hands on his waist, his head tilted back, “perhaps to visit the bathroom!”

  Axel desperately needed to talk to someone. Not Heidl. Perhaps not even a junior associate — he would be compromising his carefully concealed plans. The American consul? Axel had not met him. An emergency meeting would have to be contrived by his wife, a U.S. citizen. But how could he give her the least intimation of the problem? He would need to think. But not now, not in the presence of this porcine Nazi.

  “You must realize, Herr Reinhard, you have no alternative than to cooperate. Perhaps it is passing through your mind that you might succeed in concealing yourself aboard the Europa until it left port. Ah, but Herr Reinhard, it pays to remind yourself that the Europa is a part of the national German merchant fleet. If you were absent from our rendezvous point when the Europa is ready to pull away, we would simply advise the captain to delay sailing until he got a clearance from us.

  “And — ” Gradler himself rose, looking directly at Axel — “if you put us to that trouble, we would bring not only you on shore, but also your son Sebastian.”

  “Sebastian! How could you lay hands on him?”

  “Because he is a German ward. And because he is an enemy of the Fatherland.”

  “ What are you saying , Gradler ? How do you make a thirteen-year-old boy an enemy of the Fatherland?”

  Axel listened to what Gradler then said.

  It didn’t take long to hear the words. But they were enough to end the meeting. His face pale, Axel walked toward the hotel room door.

  “Wait for one moment, Herr Reinhard. Just two points. At 2358, two minutes before sailing time, I will look for you at Embarcation Station B, dispatcher’s office. The second point: If there is any indication of diplomatic interference, then the boy Sebastian will be brought away from the ship.”

  Axel opened the door and walked down the fire escape stairs to the lobby, and out into the blazing, hellish sun over Frankfurtstrasse.

  Book Two

  Chapter Five

  Munich, Summer 1899

  At nineteen, Henrietta Leddihn had finished her schooling and did what most girls of her age and her father’s standing did, which was to help out at home and wait until something happened that led to marriage and a family of her own. Life at home was not idle. She practiced her piano and spent much time with her twenty-year-old brother Walther, dearly beloved, who aspired to a post as a regular violinist with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

  That was the family dream in the Leddihn household: Walther to play the violin with the Munich Symphony. Walther played occasionally with lesser ensembles and regula
rly at the Lutheran church, where his mother sang and also served as assistant choral conductor. His father, Erik, had played with the orchestra for twenty years, serving as one of the orchestra’s twenty-two violinists. Seven years ago, in 1892, he had been tapped by the Musikdirektor to be first violinist.

  It was a big job. The orchestra had a large string section — first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, and two basses — making up forty-three of the seventy-eight instruments of the proud institution that had given the world premieres of Wagner’s Tannhauser and Lohengrin at the great Residenztheater, opened in 1864. Erik Leddihn’s responsibility as concertmaster was to hire and fire players for the entire string section and, as first violinist, to lead the orchestra.

  Henrietta had been born in Innsbruck, 100 miles south, in Austria’s Tyrolean countryside. She was tall and blond, pretty, and exuberant, a full-blown Austrian, vivacious and decisive in manner. She routinely instructed her submissive older brother on what to practice, what to play, and what not to play, accompanying him on the piano at some of his practice sessions. The musical excitement, in their Munich circle in the summer of 1899, was the Generalmusikdirektor’s resolve to inaugurate a Mozart festival and to launch it as a part of the general cultural festivities celebrating the turn of the century. A guest conductor had been retained, Alois William Steiner from New York, a thirty-year-old who had made a mark as a performing violinist and was now conductor of the Rochester Symphony Orchestra.

  Herr Leddihn, back home from a rehearsal for next Friday’s concert, sat with his family drinking tea in the comfortable living room with the mullioned, oval windows. He opened his briefcase, took out a folder, and passed about a publicity picture of Alois William Steiner and a curriculum vitae.

  “Notice,” he said to his wife, Christa, “the fine reviews he has received. Our music director didn’t tell us, when he visited New York, that he had young Steiner in mind for the Mozart festival. But he has sent around two critical testimonials to Steiner from important New York critics who especially praised his Mozart. He did the Thirty-ninth, the Fortieth, and the Forty-first, in a single concert.”

  “I think he looks mysterious and haughty,” Henrietta said, studying the photograph. “And anyway, why didn’t the director hire somebody from Germany? Or — from Austria? There is talent enough in our part of the world.”

  “Henrietta, you always make judgments impetuously,” her mother said, putting down the oratorio score she had been studying.

  “I bet he’s not as good a violinist as Walther,” Henrietta, undeterred, continued.

  “ Schwesterlein , how can you say that?” Walther, embarrassed, looked down at the biographical material. “Herr Steiner began performing publicly when he was twelve!”

  “Well, I heard you perform when you were eight .” Henrietta looked over slyly at her father. It was strictly forbidden, in the household of the Konzertmeister, to make any mention of Walther’s career that could be interpreted as an appeal for special consideration by the august Munich Symphony. Shortly after Erik Leddihn had attained his high office, he came home one afternoon and expressed his exasperation with the constant politicking he was now exposed to by family, however distant. “Christa, is anybody related to you or to me unmusical? I would like to collect such a person, or persons. All I get now is suggestions from the Leddihn family and the Kuehnelt family — you have more relatives than King David! — who want to compose music for us or write musical notes for our programs or perform as soloists with the symphony or play in the symphony. We have, applying for positions, violinists, drummers, piccolo players — “

  “Erik, don’t exaggerate.”

  “Well I intend to draw up a form letter to be sent to all members of the Leddihn family and the Kuehnelt family: Do not address any musical requests to the Konzertmeister . he is too busy rehearsing to consider them! ”

  Henrietta’s reference to the skills of her brother was a risky violation of that taboo. But her father Erik, and her mother Christa, and her brother Walther, let it pass. And anyway, Herr Leddihn had more to say that afternoon on the subject of Alois Steiner.

  “Yes, he is American, and yes, we have great talent here. But the Generaldirektor has committed the Munich Symphony to encouraging visiting artists ever since he took office, and this policy has had reciprocal benefits. You will remember, Henrietta, that our own Fritz Hesse was in New York and Boston as guest conductor just a year ago.

  “Now,” he turned to his daughter. “A practical matter. Henrietta, I have arranged for you to interpret for Maestro Steiner when he is here. You have time on your hands and he knows — to quote him exactly — ‘only about ten words of German.”‘ “Well, I only know... eleven words of English.”

  Her brother intervened. “Come on, Henri. I’ve heard you speak in English and you do very well. Fraulein Jaspar taught me English before she taught you.” He turned to his father. “Papa, Henrietta speaks quite...adequately.”

  “Quite well enough to get Herr Steiner through his six concerts, I can assure you,” Christa said. “Fraulein Jaspar,” she reassured her husband, “was very pleased with Henrietta.”

  “When does he get here?” Henrietta wanted to know. “And how much are you going to pay me?”

  The Konzertmeister smiled, leaned over, and patted his daughter on the back of her head. “Me, pay you ? For this great experience?”

  “When exactly is he coming?” Christa asked. “Will he be staying at the Buergerhof?”

  “Yes. He arrives on November 15th. The first of the six concerts will be November 20th. And the Requiem — the farewell to the nineteenth century — will be on Century Eve. December 31st, 1899.”

  “I am free on that date.” Henrietta smiled, kissed her father’s cheek, and patted the back of his head.

  Chapter Six

  December 30, 1899

  New Year’s Eve was on Sunday. On Saturday, her parents were having afternoon tea. Henrietta came into the room, her cheeks flushed. She informed her mother, in a voice edged with defiance, that she would be dining that night with Alois, as she by now referred to the visiting American conductor.

  “You’ve already had dinner with him twice this week,” her mother commented, looking up from the newspaper account of German warships standing by to protect German ships against British interruption in the pursuit of the Boer War.

  “I know , mother.” Henrietta braced herself. She turned her head not to her mother, nor to her father, but to Walther. He sat on the bench by the fireplace with his tiny little screwdriver, tightening a nut on the peg box of his violin. “But...I will be dining with Alois every night very soon.”

  Mother, father, and brother turned to her.

  “Yes, he asked for my hand in marriage yesterday and I accepted.” Now, the words having been spoken, she beamed out her pleasure and walked over to embrace her father.

  “Oh, my little girl,” was all he could say.

  “Oh, Henrietta,” Christa began to sob. “I cannot stand to think of you living in another world.”

  Henrietta turned to her father. “Papa, why don’t you use your influence to get Alois appointed permanent conductor of the Munich Symphony?”

  Walther, who relished her audacity, smiled appreciatively. “You admit he has conducted brilliantly, don’t you? And our old Termi, he’s going to die of old age while he’s conducting, if he isn’t replaced!”

  “Herr Doktor Termi is a very distinguished musician, Henrietta, and I do not believe that the Generaldirektor has any plans to replace him immediately. And your Herr Steiner, I agree, is very accomplished, scholarly, methodical — ”

  “And sexually appealing.”

  The shock filled the room. The conversation stopped. Then Christa began to chuckle. “Henrietta, you are impossible . You have always been impossible. If you mean he is good looking, yes, I agree. But you shouldn’t mention that — other thing.”

  Henrietta laughed, and now she embraced Walther. She had lost all modesty. “An
d Walther, if Papa doesn’t make you a violinist with the Munich orchestra, I shall see to it that you are offered a post with the Rochester Symphony.”

  Every member of the family now spoke at once. The sheer joy Henrietta radiated overcame them all. A half hour later she got up. “I have to get ready for dinner. He is sending a coach for me at 1930.”

  She walked coquettishly to the staircase and bounded up to the second floor. Walther, violin in hand, said he would go off to the practice room. He called up to her. “Henri, I love you!”

  Erik and Christa sat opposite each other. The newspaper, abandoned, rested on her lap. Erik rose and tinkered with the embers. He hesitated, then reached for a fresh log and placed it on the faltering fire.

  Christa blew her nose into her handkerchief.

  Herr Leddihn sat back down in his chair. “We must try to stop it, Christa.”

  “Why?”

  “Alois Steiner is a Jew.”

  Chapter Seven

  At sea, September 1939

  Every morning on the Europa when the message center opened, Annabelle Reinhard was there waiting for the passenger telegrams to be sorted out. On the midnight of the departure, as the great ship began to pull away from the dock, she had been vexed that Axel wasn’t at her side, with Sebastian, to hear the orchestra playing, view the crowds waving, and join with what seemed a thousand people leaning over the ship rails, some laughing with excitement, some teary, some ending a vacation in Europe, some — like the Reinhards — off to a vacation in America. When the champagne tray passed by she took one glass and handed it to Sebastian (“He’ll hold it for my husband,” she reassured the steward; “he’ll be right along”) and took another for herself. Minutes after the ship was released from land, impatience overcame her. Sebastian, taken by the excitement, was waving to the slowly receding crowd on shore, adopting one after another from the hundred-odd who crowded the balcony above the wharf as target of his exuberant leave-taking.