Carl shook his head: “Why on earth should that organization’s success affect Hitler’s release? As Held must know, the Frontbann is nothing to do with Hitler: Röhm insists on the Militant Arm’s complete independence of civil Party control.”
“Oho! So all Hitler rules nowadays is the purely political arm?” Carl nodded. “And yet, a little bird tells me that even here some folk in the Party would like to see Hitler brought down a peg.”
“The terriers yap while the mastiff is chained.” Carl laughed, but a little uncertainly.
“So, then: at least Political-Generalissimo Hitler would have to approve such purely political changes of stance as this new competing for seats in Reichstag?” (No answer; but maybe Carl was too busy ordering drinks.) “And Rosenberg, Strasser and Ludendorff hand-in-glove with that ‘Patriot’ group in the North?”
Carl’s face was a deeper red. “But that’s only tactics ... and tactics should surely be left to the man on the spot....”
“By whom you must mean Rosenberg—Leader ‘protem,’” said Reinhold; and something in Reinhold’s voice made Carl glance up at him warily, scenting further danger. Then came the crucial question: “But all these public insults to Thinker Rosenberg, insults to Hitler’s own Deputy-Designate: doubtless the Führer always comes down on his Deputy’s side—and with every ounce of his weight?”
Carl seemed so unwilling to answer that finally Franz chipped in: “But my friend Lothar says that Rosenberg’s just a louse they want to help Hitler get out of his hair!”
Thus it was Reinhold who kicked Franz under the table; but just too late. Carl looked at the interrupter with shocked distaste, then rose and began to make his excuses. But Franz ignored the kick for the sake of a parting shot: “ ‘The Louse’ they all of them call him, and ‘Pie-faced Highbrow’! While Esser and Streicher they think the world of....”
“Now you’ve torn it!” said Reinhold, as soon as the two were alone.
But Franz only frowned. “Lothar says it’s all in a terrible mess: he is near despair. If Hitler but knew what goes on....”
“If he ‘knew’? Do you think he depends for news on that vain little fool? He’s as many eyes as a fly—and I bet you they don’t miss much.”
“Then why, if he knows that what’s left of the Nazi Movement is tearing itself in pieces, does Hitler just sit there in Landsberg and dream?”
“Come-come! Would you have him clamp down on dissensions and reappear later to find the Party united ... behind someone else?” (Franz was struck dumb.) “He can well afford to sit dreaming in Landsberg: the only job on his hands at the moment is setting his friends by the ears—and that he could do on his head.”
“You mean ... he’s deliberately pulling down all he’s given his life hitherto to constructing?”
“Exactly. For isn’t it better to burn empty shoes yourself than leave them for somebody else to step in? And once he comes out of jail what he’s built up before he can build up again. So let me make a confession: I used to underrate Hitler, but now for one single decision of downright genius off comes my hat to him. Rosenberg—picking the one man to take his place who couldn’t conceivably! Just imagine the fugitive Hitler, crazed with pain from his broken shoulder: there’s five bare seconds to think in before his arrest and in which to scribble ‘Herr Rosenberg, YOU lead the Party from now.’ If that wasn’t genius, tell me what is.”
“Then you purport to find,” said Franz heavily, “depths in this fellow of cunning which I, though a student of politics, had not discerned?” (Reinhold concealed his amusement.) “We’ve no mad charlatan here, you suggest, but a Machiavelli?” Franz paused for a term of frowning thought, but finally shook his head. “No. For that doesn’t tie up at all with the Hitler who launched that imbecile Putsch.”
“Mind you, I think he’s changing,” conceded Reinhold: “I think the run of Wagner’s ‘Rienzi’ is over. We’ll see no more of the martyred ‘People’s Tribune.’ His next production is much more likely ‘The Meistersingers’—of course with appropriate changes of casting: the gifted amateur learning the rules of the silly professionals’ game and beating them at it hands down....”
He signed to the waiter to bring him the bill; for much as he liked young men he couldn’t help tiring of Franz.
*
That “imbecile” Putsch.... Reinhold, alone on his way to the Courts for a boring case, gave rein to his new conception of Hitler’s political genius: of Hitler, that is, as someone whose “imbecility” lay in thinking five jumps ahead of everyone else.
That fore-doomed Putsch.... Well, suppose it had never been launched: what then?—And this seemed the right approach: for indeed if Hitler had failed to stage his mammoth diversion the very same night might have seen Prince Rupprecht made King—and would likely have seen Bavaria leaving the Reich, the signal for similar fragmentation all over Germany.... Germany back to the days before Bismarck, in fact: the one thing Hitler had got to prevent, if he aimed at one day ruling a whole German Reich—prevent it at even the risk of his life.
His Daemon would stick at nothing to get to the top! Down Reinhold’s spine ran a shiver, in spite of the summer weather.
And yet (thought Reinhold) were genius and utter determination enough for an ignoramus whose incomprehension of anything more than the here-and-now of hand-to-hand politics seemed abysmal, for one who could place his ideological trust in that worthless Rosenberg rubbish? What could this untaught guttersnipe know of the world-situation, of all the multitudinous issues he’d find on his plate if he ever did get to the top?
Surely a mind as untutored as his was like one of those maps in the Middle Ages which only showed the cartographer’s own stamping-ground in accurate detail, surrounded by fabulous beasts and Terra Ignota and Ocean. Supposing he did “flog himself up the peaks” to the ultimate summit of power, how could a man like that survive for a day when he got there? This curbside and beer-hall stuff, till now, had been mere snakes-and-ladders: you picked yourself up none-the-worse and made a fresh start if you put a foot wrong. But the higher he got the harder he’d fall; and he’d find those “peaks” he aspired to were one continuous butter-slide....
Reaching the court, Reinhold the Eminent Jurist startled an usher by spanking his own behind like someone scolding a horse: “Reinhold Steuckel,” he murmured: “You eminent goose! You were getting as silly as he is, you’d lost all sense of proportion!”
So Reinhold took his seat in the court reassured.... Or, was he?
13
Once that Mammoth-Spectacular Trial was over other sensations followed it, other headlines; and ninety-nine people out of a hundred forgot it—even the politicians themselves, so busy (like Gilbert) keeping their eyes on the ball. As for Tom-Dick-and-Harry (or Gustav and Emma Krebelmann), politics after all was just a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land lived in by Cloud-Cuckoo-Landers, and hardly impinging on real people at all. If only historians knew that what matters to real folk has to be something real! Something like getting one’s claws into Walther von Kessen’s forests, or Gretl scalding her hand too badly to sweep.... Or our own little Ernst still catching trouble at school (for how could the Goddess of History smile on a boy who couldn’t remember her dates?).
“Eleven-five-six” was the date of the Founding of Kammstadt, that most important of all historical dates! Lehrer Faber had boxed his ears, and tried to rub in the digits with One, One, Five and six “head-nuts.” For Kammstadt was two years older than upstart Munich, founded Eleven-five-eight—a fact no Kammstadter ever ought to forget. More-over the founder of both, the great Duke Henry the Lion (“No NOT his father Duke Henry the Proud, you blockhead!”) had honored our founding by combing a beard which had never been combed for years (“So you see how we came by our name of Kammstadt”): and two of the broken teeth of that overtaxed comb were the proudest relics the town possessed.
Still, nobody really minded head-nuts; and after all, with fifty boys in the class what else could the boys expect?
Learn
ing here was all of it learning by rote, and lost was the child who altered a single word (as you tended to do, if weakly you let yourself think of the sense). But even paraphrase was a peccadillo compared with writing left-handed. Each time that Ernst did this the crime was promoted: from head-nuts, through ruler-cuts on chilblainy knuckles, to laying him bare-bum over the table and switching with hazel-rods. When even that failed (little Ernst’s young friends having nicked the rods with their knives in advance so they broke), the Teacher even tried Reason: for surely it stands to Reason that nobody writes with his left?
Lehrer Faber, with bristling red mustache and a look of thwarted ambition in piercingly bright blue eyes: this was the Fountain of Knowledge.... When lessons were done and the school exploded there always remained a quorum of small boys jostling round him, bombarding him with their questions six-at-a-time. There was nothing the Lehrer didn’t know, from astronomy down to sexing lady and gentleman worms and how and airplane flies.
Little Ernst was often one of the jostlers—not that he always had something to ask, but because he liked to be part of a lump (any lump, whatever its object). One day he found he had somehow jostled himself right up in front, but a question luckily came: “Herr Lehrer, I know you can’t fly just by hanging on to the string of a big enormous kite; but suppose you tied your kite to an eagle, couldn’t you?”
When he got home, his mother was anxious to know what Ernst had learned that day in school. For answer, he silently took his old toy rabbit and made it zoom through the air with its long flannel ears outstretched, pretending he’d got an eagle....
But what was the use of even a real eagle to someone who hadn’t a kite to tie to it?
Meanwhile, for Hitler in Landsberg August passed and September too without his expected release; and as Reinhold hinted he might, he gave the whole discredit for this to Röhm. He suspected Röhm and his growing “militant arm” of malice prepense, of intending to keep the Munich authorities too much alarmed to want Hitler at large while behaving just well enough not to get banned themselves. In October his six months were up: yet October passed, and November ... and Hitler chalked up a very bad mark against Röhm.
The December Elections however at last did the trick. For now the tide had apparently turned, and even that right-wing electoral coalition the Nazi remnant had joined lost more than half of their seats: so the “Nazi Menace”—if ever there really was one—no longer existed....
The Munich authorities heaved a sigh of relief and turned him loose just before Christmas.
Counting back to the day of Hitler’s arrest, he had been “out of action” for thirteen months. No one was wearing his shoes, he had seen to that—though Röhm had apparently cobbled-up some sort of pair of his own. Now he must make a fresh start; but not entirely from scratch, for this time (thanks to the Trial) everyone knew his name—and nobody knew his plans.
14
In an elegant house in an elegant quarter of Munich, at half-past six, an impatiently-waiting child hears a visitor kicking the snow off his boots in the hall: then a hop-skip-and-jump, and he’s riding high in the visitor’s arms while he breathes “Dass D’nur wieder da bist, Onkel Dolf!” down the mothbally neck of the visitor’s blue party-suit. And how that fine little four-year old hero had grown since the day when they shared those cakes in the Blutenbergstrasse cell! “But where have you hidden your new baby sister, you rascal?”
However, before the four-year-old hero could answer his long-lost Uncle was pleading with Father to play him the “Liebestod.” ...
Hanfstängl glanced at his guest in surprise. Why, he looked so well; and they’d hardly yet said How-d’you-do! Could a fit of the old nervous tension be on him again so soon? Well, Wagner’s music was always the cure—like Saul. So he sat himself down then and there and thundered the “Liebestod” out on his big concert grand, while the bust of Benjamin Franklin danced all over the lid.
The listener seemed to have grown quite plump: as he stood with his feet apart and his head on one side, his serge suit strained at its buttons so much that the little boy eyed it in wonder. But just as the last of those healing Lisztian fireworks died on the air, in came Mother with little Herta—and Uncle was kissing her hand and gone into ecstasies over our baby, and saying again and again how sorry he was for all the trouble he’d caused her at Uffing....
What “trouble” at Uffing? The boy could remember nothing, apart from some baying of dogs in the dark; and surely those hadn’t been Uncle’s dogs which had made all that noise?
As a matter of fact he found there was little he could remember at all about Uncle Dolf—apart from the all-important fact that he loved him, and always had.
Then the sliding doors slid, and they moved in to dinner. This Coming-out Dinner was served in style, by candlelight. Turkey and small-talk.... Hitler professed himself greatly impressed by this highly artistic use of candles instead of electric lamps: it showed superior taste. He seemed altogether impressed by this cultured, upper-class home which his hosts had acquired; and the “feine Gegend,” the upper-class neighborhood. “Hanfstängl,” Hitler declared: “You are quite the most upper-class person I know!”
Suspecting no irony Putzi was pleased, and preened. For his friend was clearly doing his best (minding his Ps and Qs and careful to use the right knives and forks), but could do with a lot more taming and teaching yet; and Putzi fancied himself in the role of instructor to genius.
Pastries and small-talk.... The child was abysmally bored. Uncle Dolf was the only person at dinner who spoke to him even once; and that was merely recalling some infantile joke he insisted they used to share, though the boy had forgotten it. Spanking, forsooth, those “naughty” carved wooden lions on Father’s chair.... Couldn’t Uncle see how this three-year-old’s babyish stuff embarrassed a four-year-old hero? So then he turned his thoughts to the tree, and the presents to come. He had asked for a sabre, first; and he hoped there’d be no hanky-panky, the Christkind would bring him a proper cavalry one. But next on his list of requests was that cooking-stove everyone teased him about.... Would the Christkind think him a sissy like everyone else did—a boy who wanted to cook? Would Uncle Dolf think him sissy? That terrible thought made him blush to the roots of his hair, and he couldn’t swallow his tart.
Wine, and a deal more small-talk.... Herr Hitler drank almost nothing, yet seemed to be warming up. He told one cruel satirical prison anecdote after another, making them laugh as he brought Count Toni to mimic life—and then his warders, even producing their tread in the passage outside, and the turn of a key in the lock, all done with that magical voice.
In his pictures of prison life he was palpably playing for sympathy. Putzi however decided that prison had done him the world of good, for a rest and a regular life had been just what he needed. No doubt he was now a saner and wiser man; and perhaps the future was not so black after all.... He thought of Frederick the Great, and reminded Hitler that after the Battle of Hochkirch even “der alte Fritz” sat biting his nails on a drum and had thought he was done for.
But Hitler brushed aside all serious talk of the future: tonight was a festive night. Instead he started in bubbling spirits to tell them stories of life on the Western Front. Mostly these were good-humored enough—though he seemed to have got it in for some Colonel von Kessen, a stuck-up Bavarian Baron whom Hitler mimicked while everyone laughed till the tears ran down their faces (even the little boy managed a loud guffaw, though he’d no idea what his parents were laughing about). Hitler contrasted this toff with his earthier Sergeant-Major Amman, of whom he spoke warmly; and also the sterling Lieutenant Hess....
Next he started a parody howling and whistling through his teeth till there wasn’t the battle-sound of a German or French or an English gun that his mimicry didn’t include; and they gasped with surprise at his skill when he even attempted the composite roar of a Western Front artillery barrage, complete with Howitzers, Seventy-fives and machine-guns. The windows rattled, the furniture shook; and
a rueful Putzi thought of his upper-class neighbors startled pop-eyed out of their Christmas peace. Whizz-bangs, and rumbling tanks: the screams of the wounded.... They laughed more uncertainly now, no longer sure it was quite so funny—this mimicking voice of the plump little man in a blue serge suit who never forgot a sound: the retching cough of the gassed, the glug of somebody shot through the lungs.
“Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” on the concert grand.... It was time for the longed-for Bescherung, the Tree and the presents at last; and they all put on holy faces. But “Stille Nacht” was for only so long as they stood in a pious line and sang: once Uncle had started showing the little soldier the way to hold the saber which Baby-Jesus had brought him the music changed to a stirring Nazi March. Moreover this was the “Schlageter March” which Father himself had composed in the martyr’s honor (shot by the French, in the Ruhr). In its sad-somber parts the bass notes imitate drums, and then comes the wild ferocious “Pfui!” refrain:
Zwanzig Millionen—die sind euch wohl zuviel,
Frankreich! das sollst Du bereu’n!
Pfui!
“Pfui!” Stirred to ancestral depths, you crammed all your hate and contempt for the dastardly French in that single yell Pfui.... Catching the mood from elders themselves too moved to notice, the little boy waved his wooden saber and slashed at the heavy furniture (“Pfui! Pfui!”), trying to make it bleed. But now a sudden torrent of words from Hitler howled down the grand piano and even the “Pfui” refrain itself: how the War must be fought all over again in France, but now against France alone so that France could be brought to her knees and Paris shattered to rubble, the French crushed under its ruins like cesspool rats....
The pianist snatched his hands from the keys as from red-hot coals, aghast at the screaming devil his music had raised in his guest. Was this any “saner and wiser man,” who still could suppose we would ever be left alone in the ring with France? But penned for a year with only ignorant blockheads like Rudolf Hess with his Clausewitz-Haushofer-Rosenberg nonsense.... Indeed, half in love—so far as he could fall in love—with “mein Rudi, mein Hesserl.” ...
The Wooden Shepherdess Page 16
