Traitor's Gate

by Charlie Newton

  A boy dropped from the sky and thudded in front of Schroeder’s taxi. The driver swerved. A girl smashed to the pavement next to the boy, her dress shredded and limbs askew. Cheers followed. Schroeder craned out his window at a rooftop crowded with Nazi youth shouting and shaking their fists at the two corpses. Not smug any longer, are we, Juden? Schroeder’s taxi continued south, past synagogues ablaze and fire brigades sitting idle. Swastika flags billowed everywhere. More Nazi youth spilled into the streets. More Juden, beaten bloody, would follow.

  It was a wondrous homecoming.

  Schroeder demanded the taxi veer into the mayhem. The driver did, until proceeding deeper was impossible. Schroeder struggled out into the mob on Fasanenstrasse—old Jews were being run like livestock—blond boys waved flags and clubs, glass crunched under their boots . . . smoke, shouting, blood.

  Schroeder pounded his fists on the taxi’s hood and screamed into the sky: “Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!”

  His release was almost sexual. The crowd herded his Juden past. His Juden who would fertilize his desert. Where he would be king, a monarch beyond the Krupp Dynasty’s imagination. Destiny had finally called and Erich Schroeder wept.

  All night Schroeder listened to the reports of Kristallnacht, a glass-shard tornado rampaging through the streets of Nuremberg, then the Rhineland, then Vienna and what had once been Czechoslovakia. Two hundred synagogues were flame-blackened rubble. Seven thousand shops were gutted. Thirty thousand Jews had been arrested. Across the entire nation the rioters had chanted, “Auf nach Palästina!” Their spontaneous solution to the Jewish Question redefined the national imperative to match Schroeder’s. “Jews out! Out to Palestine!” Only Hitler could have orchestrated a stronger endorsement for Schroeder’s empire. Himmler be damned, the people of the Fatherland had spoken!

  Two days after Kristallnacht, Erich Schroeder was summoned to Karinhall. There, in private, Schroeder was informed that five men had concluded a secret meeting in Munich with Reichsmarschall Göring. They discussed new options for the Jewish Question. Three of Göring’s participants were Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, Deputy Chief of the Gestapo Reinhard Heydrich, and Reichsbank president Walter Funk. The two-day, nationwide riot of Kristallnacht had been the Jews’ final indictment.

  Reichsmarschall Göring received Erich Schroeder upon his arrival at Karinhall. One lamp lit Göring’s study, shadowing it in faint orange. A small fire smoldered in the hearth and added neither heat nor light. The Reichsmarschall seemed uneasy, his hand massaging the obvious bloat of his right leg. The wide face peered out of the shadows; the eyes were deep set and cautious. Reichsmarschall Göring motioned Schroeder to sit. “In one day of riots, Himmler and Heydrich have filled Buchenwald with thirty thousand Juden. Ein tag. Goebbels succumbs to Himmler’s vision, bleating their heroic headlines—an impotent cripple’s way of gaining fame and protectors.”

  Schroeder offered the nod that was expected and nothing more. The Reichstag and the Chancellor’s Hall were a king’s court of vicious intrigue and constant maneuvering. Propaganda Minister Goebbels was one of Göring’s many adversaries campaigning for Hitler’s ear.

  Göring inhaled, stretching the powdered skin of his cheeks, then leaned in for effect, focusing eyes unclouded by today’s morphine. “Tonight I have fined the whole of Jewry one billion reichsmarks for inciting the riots. All Jews will be banned from German economic life and their children from our schools.” Göring made no attempt to hide the pride of great men facing monumental tasks. “But this is not enough. The Führer has made his final decision. I alone am entrusted with Endlösung der Judenfrage.”

  The words entered Schroeder’s head through his chest. Ja!

  Göring gently lifted a biplane replica from his desk. “First and foremost, I am an aviator. But the Jews, we must finish with the Jews. Only then may we concentrate on the air war, the aviation gasoline that vanquishes Germany’s hopes or makes us gods.” Göring offered the biplane on his palm between them. “Which will it be, Oberstleutnant? Vanquished or gods?”

  Schroeder could not stop the grin. “We will be gods, Reichsmarschall. Our American progresses daily with the Spanish refinery. There were many failures by his predecessor. But our American is brilliant. Final tests are planned in March, four months.”

  Göring bellowed, “Four? Chamberlain flies his British spitfires in my face now. I see Sitra-Bahrain in my sleep. Four months is too long for Tenerife.”

  “The aviation gasoline made at Sitra-Bahrain is high quality, yes, but limited in amount and cannot supply the British on even a small scale. Haifa is at least a year away if you do not wish it bombed again.”

  Göring returned the plane to his desk and his hands to his leg. The bloated fingers matched the girth of his other appendages but in miniature. The crimson socks were a surprise even for a man known to be a peacock. Schroeder said nothing, watched the massage, and waited. Göring found the measured, threatening tone he was known for. “Himmler believes you handle the desert gasoline poorly. He and Heydrich believe you have ‘other’ interests or are not up to the responsibility. A ‘gangster,’ an ‘amateur,’ a ‘third-class bastard of the Krupps’ you were called. They politick Hess and the Führer, suggesting the Gestapo be charged with protecting the Luftwaffe’s gasoline.” Red blotched Göring’s neck until it filled his face and the blue veins spidered near his eyes. The fat hand rose off his leg, curling into a hammer. It hesitated with a slight tremor, then smashed the desk.

  The biplane splintered and he screamed: “My Luftwaffe. Mine!” Plane pieces sprinkled to the rug. “My Luftwaffe, Oberstleutnant. While I fought and bled in Germany’s skies, Himmler and Heydrich made speeches to children and policed shopkeepers!”

  The Reichsmarschall sucked a long, labored breath and pushed his substantial weight almost rigid in the chair. “Tenerife is crucial. Once the technology is in place, we must control it, then duplicate those modifications in Germany. Immediately.” Göring stabbed a meaty finger at Schroeder’s face. “You must succeed before the Jews of America turn the sleeping monster against us. Tenerife will force our partners in America to end these piecemeal business negotiations and take an open stand.”

  “I will, Reichsmarschall. The American engineer is under my control. Should the American corporations and I.G. Farben fail you, I will not. My American will produce for Germany what others cannot or will not.” Schroeder cleared his throat and stood rigid. “I have no other interests but yours and mine, and they are the same. SS Reichsführer Himmler is wrong.”

  Göring inhaled through the beginning of a grin.

  “And should you ask for Himmler’s head, Reichsmarschall, I will bring it on a plate, tonight.”

  Göring horse-laughed. “Such an act would be treason.”

  “What one would expect from a ‘gangster.’”

  Göring darkened. “As von Ribbentrop worried, Herr Schmitz of I.G. Farben continues to guarantee America’s participation in the Blitzkrieg but fails to deliver its final components as well. In three days he travels to New York to pacify his Jew bankers in New York, then to conspire with his Capitalist partners in Detroit. I fear things in New York and Detroit are not the rose garden that Herr Schmitz reports to the Reichsbank and Berlin. You will attend Schmitz’s meetings as my direct representative. The bankers you cannot mollify. Bring me their true temperament. Detroit will be different. Your ‘gangster’ history with the Irénée DuPont should prove . . . helpful.”

  “Jawohl, Reichsmarschall.”

  “The Capitalists in New York and London have invested heavily in Germany’s rearmament. Their money will be lost if the Reich does not receive the aluminum supply promised from the Alcoa monopoly. Alcoa’s aluminum supply is worthless without Standard Oil’s synthetic rubber formulas. And without promised production quotas for truck and Panzer equipment with Adam Opel—80 percent owned by your DuPonts of General Motors—the rubber and aluminum will produce only bicycles. Herr Schmitz still represents that these agreements are s
igned and sealed, but von Ribbentrop and I fear the agreements are now pawns in the negotiation for aviation gas.” Göring tapped a telegram on his desk. “Make no mistake, the Capitalists, here and in America, are their own country with no allegiance to the Reich or any other government. And here, their would-be Führer is Hermann Schmitz.”

  Göring handed Schroeder the telegram. It was signed by Fritz Kuhn, the Bundesführer of the German American Bund. “While you are in New York assessing our banker ‘friends,’ speak with Herr Kuhn. Before his rally. If Kuhn will not cease his claims that our Führer is the force behind the American Bund, silence him. The Reich can ill afford any unwanted attention to our handling of the Jewish Question.”

  “Yes, Reichsmarschall. It will be done.”

  Göring pointed Schroeder at a roll of plans leaning against the ornate desk. “Open those.”

  Schroeder did—full-size schematics and stamped originals of the Mendelssohn papers. His pulse hammered and he almost stuttered. If he were caught withholding original duplicates of these papers, he would be shot as a traitor on the same day. Such was the risk of empire.

  Göring explained that SS Untersturmführer Adolph Eichmann had authored the documents—an interesting plan, actually a memorandum of modification—for the complete “removal” of Jews from Germany and Europe. There were logistical problems with Eichmann’s plan, as well as political. This was to be expected. But the memorandum had been enough for Eichmann to convince Himmler and Heydrich that deporting the Jews to Palestine for eradication there would not work. Eichmann wanted to eradicate the Jews here, where they were. Hence these blueprints for modifications to camps such as Buchenwald.

  Schroeder considered how quickly he could kill this Adolph Eichmann.

  Göring tapped a fat fingertip on Eichmann’s plans. “Jews must go to Zion, to Palestine. Himmler and Heydrich are fools; they do not understand the consequence of Eichmann’s plan if executed on European soil. The Juden must be deported to their sacred “homeland” and dealt with there, the ‘great and noble’ Arabs the arbiters of the Jewish fate.”

  “Without question, Reichsmarschall.”

  Göring told Schroeder that an inspection had been scheduled for him at Buchenwald with the camp commandant, Standartenführer Karl Koch. “Review the existing construction and human data carefully, then the designs for the crematoria. According to Standartenführer Koch, Eichmann’s burial component for such high numbers will not work; the bodies must be burned.” Göring pointed to the plans. “These test ovens could be in place by January 1, 1940—thirteen months. Should Eichmann and his SS masters convince the Führer, there will be no support for my Palestine solution.” Göring tapped harder. “These test ovens must be in Palestine, built by you but in the hands of Arabs, not Germany. Palestine and the Arabs are the proper answer to the Endlösung der Judenfrage.”

  “Ja. Ja.” Schroeder restrained from demonstrating his joy as the wealth of the fleeing Jew poured back into his third-class bastard hands. “I agree.”

  The last leg of Schroeder’s trip to Buchenwald was from the train station in Weimar. The serene mountain road climbed north to Thüringen through dense birch, oak, and beech, ending at a fairy-tale break aflame in color. Nestled at the valley’s center were the baroque ramparts and minarets of Ettersburg Castle, a grand Germanic change from the smoldering, barren bickering of Iraq; Palestine; and, most recently, volcanic, sulfur-choked Tenerife.

  Downslope, Schroeder exited the car out of the castle’s sight. The hard-packed ground under his boots was desolate and dead. The mid-November air was brisk, clean of any death or decay but not construction. There was much construction.

  Schroeder faced the torgebäude, the main gatehouse. It resembled a long gray train passing through a lifeless two-story barn, half the train visible on either side. A wide center entrance had been cut into the barn’s side and gated in reinforced black iron. Jedem Das Seine was shaped into the gate’s teeth, To Each His Own. Affixed atop the barn was a stubby clock tower with a hole for the clock but no clock. Time wasn’t important here. Buchenwald was no longer a prison.

  A puffy-faced man in a white uniform continued to point and explain.

  Schroeder scanned the orderly low roofs above drab, mouse-colored brick buildings. There were also frailer structures of similar dull shape, but constructed of wood and already faded in color. Faded? Buchenwald was a prototype and not yet two years old. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the brick buildings but none from the wood structures; they had no chimneys. He counted twenty-two concrete guard towers, three guards in each, all pointing machine guns, all intent on the inside of the camp as if trouble were a constant expectation. The towers anchored an electrified-fence perimeter. Fang-like posts curved up and out of gravel that was the fence line’s foundation between each tower. Ten braids of barbed wire were strung taut through the posts. Not a jail—Schroeder had been in jails, always tall or deep medieval affairs. This was different: a square, bald scar hidden in an otherwise rich landscape, an installation with a single purpose: answering der Judenfrage in Germany, not Palestine.

  Standartenführer Karl Koch was still babbling about efficiency and projections and problems and Juden and . . . Schroeder asked about the crematorium, about the system.

  “Ah, ja, the system. This is the beginning of a good plan, the Eichmann plan. And none too soon.” He walked Schroeder to the burial grounds. “Here four die per day—the Juden cannot stand honest work, only complain. When our winter comes it will be ten per day—with luck, more. But where to put them?” He fanned his hand at the forest hillside. “We have no room now. If these numbers were to increase”—he glanced at the plans he’d put in Schroeder’s hands—“we would require quarries deeper than ours, forests wider . . . it cannot be done in the old way.”

  “The system, Standartenführer.”

  “Ja. Ja.” Koch pointed at the top of the slope inside the fence just left of the main entry gatehouse, his pride obvious. “The new crematorium will be there, built by Topf and Sons. The dream of I.G. Farben and the SS. Let the Juden see their future when they enter . . . others disagree and wish to trick them: an unnecessary expense.” The commandant shrugged narrow shoulders almost to his ears. “What do they know in Berlin? They answer the Jewish Question from their desks.”

  Schroeder spent the remainder of the afternoon touring through a proposed process not unlike a stockyard, listening to Koch’s complaints and suggestions. Guards moved lines of prisoners at a distance, the prisoners’ breaths clouding above shaved heads and gray stripes. Koch explained construction times and costs, the collection and cataloguing of valuables. He answered questions about efficiency in hot weather versus cold, dirt versus sand, oil-fired crematoria versus coal and kerosene.

  At dusk Standartenführer Koch offered wine and dinner, possibly sensing an ally at Göring’s court. Schroeder accepted the invitation as he glimpsed the commandant’s wife, Ilse, regal and brazen astride her chestnut stallion. It had been rumored among Schroeder’s network that Ilse Koch had developed “interests” while a camp guard at Sachsenhausen and that she freely exhibited these same “interests” here at Buchenwald. While waiting to board his train to Weimar, Schroeder had considered how Ilse Koch’s “interests” might be used to subvert her from Himmler’s cause. Ilse Koch properly terrified or rewarded, or both, could be a useful informant on Himmler’s progress to steal Jews from their rightful owner.

  It was said that Ilse Koch had a taste for death on a . . . personal scale, unlike Himmler, whose interest was sociopathic, empty of pleasure. Himmler was in the business of eradication. Schroeder’s interest in death was no less patriotic, only more directed. He was about the harvest, the financial transfer caused by eradication.

  Dinner with Standartenführer Commandant Koch and his young wife was average and long, the potatoes not firm and the roast meat no better than the Spanish beef on Tenerife, a disappointment that Frau Ilse was not. While Commandant Koch pontificated on the Jewish Quest
ion, his wife entertained long glances at Schroeder, finishing the last by wetting her lips and touching a napkin’s corner to her bodice. Koch drank heavily throughout all three courses until he openly railed about the fools of Berlin, then fell into a mushy stupor. Ilse had glanced at her husband only occasionally, her eyes focused on Schroeder and mostly his mouth, her white teeth biting at a lower lip she now caressed with a sliding fingertip.

  Schroeder saw a woman of large appetites and too little fear. Frau Ilse could be useful, but her lack of fear would become problematic. One day there would be a reckoning for those members of the Reich who confused the Aryan birthright to empire with Roman excess or unrestrained perversion.

  “You are an art collector, Frau Koch?” The skin rumors.

  The commandant bellowed, thrashing his hands, the words unintelligible. Servants approached to assist him to the stairs. Ilse Koch barked, ordering them out. Both veered as if on rollers. She smiled at her husband, his head rolling on stooped shoulders.

  “My husband tells me you are Reichsmarschall Göring’s aide de camp? His man in America and the Middle East. An important position for such a young man.”

  She was younger than he. Schroeder smiled and sipped a bland Riesling.

  Ilse Koch continued. “I have heard . . . other things. That you may be a man to be feared.” She grinned as a wolf might. “And in our Führer’s Reich this would be quite an accomplishment, ja?”

  “What is it like, Frau Koch, for a beautiful young woman around the camps? Do you spend most of your time away, riding in the forests? The commandant must be a lonely man.”