iii In his later account, Wiesl says there were only 750 Jews: see Fraenkel, ed., The Jews of Austria, 173.
iv The libretto was eventually written by Joseph Gregor.
v ‘Ein Geyer ist beinahe schon ein Adler’ (‘A vulture’ – Geyer – ‘is almost an eagle’ – Adler ). The rumour was first put about by Nietzsche, who pointed out that Geyer was almost as Jewish a name as Adler: Der Fall Wagner, Taschen Ausgabe, Leipzig n.d., vol. II, 213.
vi Wiechert tells his story in the third person.
8
i The battle of that name in 1866, when the Prussians defeated the Austrian army and established hegemony over north Germany.
ii Lloyd was to come into his own as Secretary for the Colonies under Churchill.
iii His own family called him ‘Onkel Siegl’.
iv Captain Albert Ernest Acton Brandon, MI6 officer in Geneva.
v Ribbentrop’s diplomacy has been rightly condemned for its crassness but in this evaluation he was correct.
9
i There are several contemporary versions of this joke.
ii The future ‘Protector’ of Bohemia and Moravia.
iii The hunting lodge in East Prussia that Göring had bought from the former Kaiser.
iv Goebbels was the original spin-doctor.
v Chamberlain had been prepared for the cession of all areas with more than 50 per cent Germans, but Hitler wanted to remove the votes of Czechs planted in German-speaking areas after 1918, while any German who had left after that date would be allowed to make his views known.
vi A reference to the hated ‘dictated peace’ of Versailles.
vii The father-in-law of Baldur von Schirach and the discoverer of Eva Braun.
viii The Czech language was apparently remarkably similar. Officials at the Czech Foreign Office told Eric Gedye, ‘The Chamberlain government . . . is treating our head of state as though he were a nigger chieftain ruling some troublesome colonial tribe.’ G.E.D. Gedye, Fallen Bastions, London 1939, 410.
ix Goebbels either failed to notice, or was taken in by his own propaganda. He observed, ‘Everywhere the most profound impression was made.’ Tagebücher, I, VI, 117.
x So called because he had been German consul in Ceylon.
xi So called because the wounded soldiers sang it spontaneously on the battlefield at Leuthen on 5 December 1757, once Frederick the Great’s victory was assured.
10
i ‘Dear Bishop, if you will, show your face at the windowsill.’
11
i He was possibly wrong about Hemdenmatz, or else the owners were cunning, for they advertised in Der Stürmer.
ii Incidentally, opposite was the family house where the author’s mother was born in 1927.
iii It is still there and looks much the same, except that it is now called the ‘Osteria Italiana’.
iv Some say this was Göring: see Martin Gilbert, Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction, London 2006, 46.
v Goebbels later had a brilliant idea: he was going to issue a statement that the jeweller had been plundered by a Jew. Hitler was delighted. Tagebücher I, VI, 199.
vi First President of the State of Israel.
12
i Gertrude Scholz says that no parents were present. She was there. See Elfriede Schmidt, 1938 . . . und was dann?, Thaur bei Innsbruck 1988, 201.
EPILOGUE
i Stephanie was the result of a liaison between Gina’s father and Stephanie’s mother. Stephanie’s father was in prison at the time.
ii Killed in an air-raid on Berlin.
iii The phrase belongs to the late cabaret artist Gerhard Bronner.
iv To celebrate Schmidt’s Second Symphony Ella had the painter Adalbert Franz Seligmann decorate her music room with eight panels of various bacchanalia.
v ‘Do I thank him or punch him?’ Ludwig asked his wife Laura at the revelation.
vi Krausz’s rich Jewish wife Marianne had committed suicide in 1938. The Krausz collection passed into the hands of the Nazi authorities. The old masters must have pleased them, Krausz’s own paintings rather less.
1938: Hitler's Gamble Page 43
