Shadow and Light
Page 36
Sascha shrugged, with too much effort. “The last time I’ll be the one to protect you.” He saw his father’s confusion and said, “You don’t think they’d let this go so easily, do you? I told them you’re not worth it. A stumbler who got lucky. It won’t matter in the long run.”
It was all empty posturing, but why not give the boy this much, at least. Sascha looked so cold and frail and defiant, and never more pitiless, and for the first time Hoffner understood the true menace that lay within. It left nothing between them.
They stood silently for a few moments before Sascha stepped past him and out into the street. Hoffner listened to the crunch of boots on snow—farther and farther off—until the sound disappeared, leaving him with only the noise of the morning as comfort.
LATER—AN HOUR, MAYBE TWO—Hoffner found himself alone, peering from a bridge into the canal. It had been so easy just to walk.
The water below ran quickly from the snow, a few pieces of ice still clinging to the banks as if they could hold off the onrush indefinitely. Everywhere else was white, the haze from above having come down to cover Berlin whole. It made the city unknowable.
Hoffner rummaged through his pockets for a cigarette and found Leni’s envelope still sealed and tucked away. He hesitated, then pulled it out. It was rough in his hands, the lettering for the hotel distorted from the drying, all of it streaked in razor-thin lines of gray. The top corners had curled in, making it look like a weathered claw without the strength to grasp: weightless, powerless, weak.
He stared at it and wondered why it had come now—to taunt, to relieve—although neither would have been of much help. It seemed impossible to compress everything into this, and yet, why not? What lay inside had no meaning; it would change nothing. To everything and everyone beyond this bridge, the world of a week ago, or of next week, looked no different from this moment, and Hoffner knew he would have to find a way to believe that. The prospect brought a new kind of exhaustion, and one with no hope of relief.
He raised the envelope to his nose and breathed in, telling himself he could still smell the mint on it. He then held it out and, for a moment, let the light play on the creases before letting go. He watched until the water swallowed it and, moving off, knew it had as much chance of finding its way through Berlin now as he did.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
One month later, Hugenberg did manage to buy Ufa with the help of Deutsche Bank and I.G. Farben. His 4.5 million mark investment gave his preferred shares a twelvefold voting right, and thus ensured that his was the controlling interest in the studio. According to an internal report from Scherl GmbH at the time, the holdings were “distributed in such a way that we will definitely achieve a majority in any voting, which shows that economic control of the company rests entirely in the hands of our group.” Hugenberg immediately renegotiated the Parufamet agreement, paying off the loan and creating a producerunit system of production identical to the one in Hollywood. After that he began to build for sound production.
Captain Walther Lohmann was held responsible for what became known as the Phoebus Affair, first reported by Kurd Wenkel in the Berliner Tageblatt in March of 1927. The article focused on the Navy’s attempt to strengthen right-wing elements in Germany, but only mentioned in passing anything to do with rearmament. The Berliner Bankverein connection was barely touched on. There was no mention of Alfred Hugenberg. Much of the information about Lohmann’s clandestine doings remained hazy, until a 1993 CIA report was released which detailed his “black funds” operations with the German Navy from 1923 through 1927. As it turned out, the Berliner Bacon Company was one of his most successful (if reviled) ventures, and acted as a front for submarine construction, which continued in Cádiz and Istanbul even after Lohmann’s resignation. Defense Minister Otto Gessler and Navy Commander Hans Zenker were also forced to resign.
Within a few weeks of the exposé, the then-fledgling Nazi Party was banned from organizing in Berlin for a period of one year after several incidences of Jew-baiting and beatings in the streets. Hugenberg, however, was not the member of the Reichstag to propose the ban.
Fritz Lang needed a bit of time to recover from the catastrophic failure of Metropolis, but resurrected his career with what many have called his greatest masterpiece, M. It starred a brilliant Peter Lorre as a child-murderer. Lorre then went on to a famous, later infamous, career in Hollywood (Lorre’s continued bouts with drugs and alcohol eventually left him playing a parody of the deeply disturbed character he had first created in Germany). In 1933, then Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels approached Lang to transform German film into Nazi cinema as its leading director. Lang politely refused and shortly thereafter immigrated to the United States, where he went on to direct the classics Fury, Cloak and Dagger, and The Big Heat.
His wife, Thea von Harbou, did not join him. They divorced in 1934, and von Harbou became an ever-more-devoted member of the Nazi Party (she had joined in 1932), going on to pen scripts and books for the great cause. She was detained briefly after the war by the British, and then released to do unskilled labor, before eventually finding herself working with sound synchronization and dime novels.
On June 30, 1934, the party finally got rid of its more “undesirable” elements. During the “Night of the Long Knives,” Hitler purged the SA—his Brownshirts—which had grown out of those earlier Freikorps units. There had been rumors that the SA was a bastion of homosexual activity, even going so far as to imply a onetime relationship between Hitler and the SA’s leader, Ernst Roehm. Thereafter, Hitler made homosexuality a prime target for eradication.
Eventually, Hugenberg was forced to sell Ufa to the Nazis. He was briefly a member of Hitler’s cabinet but, like many other conservatives at the time, got himself into trouble by underestimating the Nazis. In perhaps his most famous line, Hugenberg boasted in 1933, “We’ll box Hitler in . . . In two months we’ll have pushed [him] so far into a corner that he’ll squeal.” Hugenberg was lucky compared to many of his friends who did not survive the year. He was allowed to remain a member of the Reichstag until 1945, but with no influence whatsoever. After the war, he also spent time with the British before dying in 1951 near Rinteln, West Germany.
As for the propaganda minister, his early interests in film gave way to a far more powerful medium. It was something new, something with a potential that film—talking or otherwise—could never achieve: the chance to step inside every German home. It was the radio.
(The song that appears in Chapter 4—“Was hast Du für Gefühle, Moritz?”—was written by Fritz Löhner-Beda and Richard Fall, and was made famous by the cabaret singer Paul O’Montis. Surround-Sound technology did not enter the marketplace until the late 1970s, a product of Dolby Laboratories.)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book might not have been possible save for the generous encouragement of David McCullough, and for that I am truly grateful. He set me on the path to Mort Janklow, who brings an insight and integrity to the art of agenting that is all too rare; it is a privilege to work with him. Mort brought the earliest pages of the manuscript to Sarah Crichton, and it was with Sarah that I discovered what old-school editing is all about. The discussions we had were always just that—a give-and-take that challenged, focused, and inspired. I cannot imagine a better editor.
I also want to thank Professor David Clay Large for his kind guidance in helping me to discover and imagine the world hidden beneath Weimar Germany.
I owe a debt of gratitude to Peter Spiegler, who was there at every stage of the manuscript. All writers should have such keen readers. Everyone should have such friends.
As ever, my parents were wonderfully enthusiastic, and, in no small measure, made the day-to-day writing of the book a reality. For the home away from home, I thank them.
And finally, for my wife, Andra, and my children, Emilia and Benjamin—they bring a light to my world that makes all shadows disappear.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jonathan Rabb is the author of
Rosa, The Book of Q, and The Overseer. He lives in New York with his wife, Andra, and two children, Emilia and Benjamin.
ALSO BY JONATHAN RABB
Rosa
The Book of Q
The Overseer