Flight from Berlin

by David John

  ‘Maybe he hasn’t given us his name yet, ma’am. There’s a bunch of injured at the hospital in Lakewood. You should try there . . . Hey, lady, get one of these guys to drive you . . .’

  It was about midday when she found him. A young nurse was winding a fresh bandage around his head. Eleanor gave a shriek when she saw him, startling the nurse, and began trembling uncontrollably.

  ‘I hope you’re Eleanor,’ said the nurse. ‘He came around again about an hour ago and kept asking me over and over if I’ve seen Eleanor . . .’

  Eleanor leaned down and kissed his drowsy lid, dropping her own tears onto his lashes.

  He opened his eyes, blinked slowly, and a smile spread over his face. She squeezed his hand.

  ‘He’s suffered a bad concussion,’ said the nurse. ‘And has some second-degree burns . . .’

  Eleanor looked into his eyes. She mouthed, ‘I love you,’ and he tried to speak. She put another pillow behind him. When he’d mustered enough breath, he said, ‘Let’s get married before anything else happens . . .’

  ‘As soon as you like,’ she said, crying.

  ‘ . . . and our honeymoon in the Pacific?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We’re taking a boat.’

  Epilogue

  Eleanor stood at the rail of the deck, enjoying the breeze cooling her skin through her pale cotton dress. Clouds tumbled towards the horizon. Weightless white boulders on the humid air. Far in the distance the forested uplands faded in a blue haze.

  During Richard’s recovery she’d taken her six weeks’ residency in Reno, Nevada, and had been granted her divorce. Within days she was married again. The ceremony was a quiet affair in the Manhattan city clerk’s office. Her father had overcome all his reservations, as she knew he would, once he’d spent half an hour in his study with Richard. Hannah, Martha, and Paul Gallico were there, but Jakob had excused himself, saying he did not wish to bring his sadness to such a happy day. Dr Eckener, already returned to Germany after the enquiry in Lakehurst, a saddened and diminished figure, had sent a telegram and gifts.

  The public enquiry began within days of the disaster, but when interviewed by German officials of the Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei, before Eckener had arrived in New York by ship, Eleanor and Denham, who between them had conclusive knowledge of the cause of the accident, were told that they would not be called as witnesses. The Reich government did not wish to make public the reason why a high-ranking state servant should have brandished and fired a gun near Gas Cell 4, nor the reason why six people on the passenger list had apparently not cleared customs or the Kontrolle at Frankfurt. The Walther PPK had been found in the wreckage and discreetly removed. Denham did, however, tell Eckener what had happened, and the old man presented his conclusions on the disaster accordingly. At least he would never be tormented by not knowing the truth. They never discovered what happened to Rex. After they alerted the SIS in London of his treachery, he vanished inside Germany.

  A large insect made her jump, droning past her face and landing on the rail a few inches from her hand.

  A steward serving drinks laughed. ‘Señora, it’s not dangerous. That’s a fig beetle, quite common in Panama.’

  She looked at the bug. Its metallic carapace glinted with shades of gold, emerald, and sapphire, like a scarab from a pharaoh’s crown. How beautiful everything is, she thought.

  Denham stepped onto the deck, holding himself a little stiffly because of his burns. He’d changed into a linen suit, a white cotton shirt, and a Panama hat and was carrying his Leica.

  ‘You don’t want to miss this,’ she said, giving him her swimsuit pose as he took a photograph. ‘It’s the first lock of the canal.’

  They watched as the lock closed behind them and began filling with water, raising the mighty tonnage of the ocean liner up, over the rocky jungle isthmus of Panama.

  ‘How does it work?’ she said, fascinated.

  ‘It’s a matter of weight and sea.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got all afternoon,’ she said kissing him. The steward approached with a tray of tall iced glasses. ‘I ordered us a Tom Collins.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gin, lime juice, soda water, sugar, and ice. Cheers.’

  ‘Cheers, Señora Denham.’

  They sipped their drinks with their arms around each other’s waists. ‘I want to keep travelling like this forever,’ she said. ‘Can’t you and I and Tom settle in the South Seas somewhere?’

  Denham turned to the horizon.

  ‘There’s a war coming,’ he said. ‘Eckener thinks so, too. We can’t prevent it now.’ He looked back at her. ‘You know what we’ll be up against. I want to fight.’

  She ran her hand gently over his cheek. ‘My Richard will be too old for the army,’ she said.

  ‘But I’ll do something. Anything I can.’

  She sighed, but not sadly. ‘Yes, I know. And I will, too.’

  Soon the ocean liner was through to the third lock, rising higher and higher, with dense banks on either side, and finally they saw it, the Pacific Ocean, a ribbon of dark indigo between forested hills.

  Author’s Note

  This book arose from a fascination with history’s footnotes—those small, intriguing facts marginal to the main narratives. The passing detail, for example, that the Graf Zeppelin occasionally had a stowaway on board, or that within days of coming to power the Nazis confiscated a six-volume file on Hitler from the archives of the Munich police. But it was the story of American Olympic swimmer Eleanor Holm and her antics on board the Manhattan in 1936 that was the catalyst to start writing. Holm had such spirit, beauty, and courage that in my mind she quickly inspired a fictional character in need of an adventure.

  It would not have been possible to write this book without drawing on a number of excellent memoirs, diaries, and histories, all of which I have enjoyed reading as much as I did the writing. Those mentioned below are just a few of these works. Any liberties taken with historical fact and any historical inaccuracies in the story are entirely my own.

  Guy Walters’s superb Berlin Games (William Morrow, 2006) portrays the stranger-than-fiction incidents of the 1936 Olympics, the parties and diplomatic intrigue, and the controversial role of Avery Brundage. Likewise, Christopher Hilton’s Hitler’s Olympics (Sutton, 2006) was extremely helpful.

  The romance of Zeppelin travel in its heyday and the towering personality of the Zeppelin genius, Hugo Eckener, are captured brilliantly in Dr Eckener’s Dream Machine by Douglas Botting (HarperCollins, 2001).

  On the culture of blackmail surrounding Hitler’s rise, and on the question of his private life, Lothar Machtan’s The Hidden Hitler (Perseus Press, 2001) was utterly compelling.

  Regarding the fate of modern art during the Third Reich and the dealings of Karl Haberstock, Jonathan Petropoulos’s The Faustian Bargain (Allen Lane, 2000) was essential reading.

  On the mysterious nature of Hitler’s blindness at the Pasewalk Military Hospital in 1918 I am indebted to The Eyewitness by Ernst Weiss (Houghton Mifflin, 1977), a work of historical description loosely presented as fiction. The book is intriguing because historians John Toland and Rudolph Binion have shown how its description of Hitler’s cure is based on medical facts known to Weiss, a German émigré who wrote the book in Paris in 1938. Weiss’s circle of German exiles was in contact with Dr Edmund Forster, the doctor who, Binion shows, had treated Hitler at Pasewalk. Forster visited the exiles in Paris in 1933.

  Hitler had all files relating to his period at Pasewalk confiscated. The few people who had access to his medical file either were killed as soon as he came to power or committed suicide in strange circumstances. In October 2011, the historian Dr Thomas Weber published the first documentary evidence that Hitler had indeed been treated for hysterical amblyopia, a psychological disorder that can cause loss of sight.

  I cannot recommend these
books highly enough.

  Notes on the Characters

  Eleanor Emerson is inspired by the real-life Eleanor Holm (1913–2004), an Olympic swimmer who was thrown off the US team by Avery Brundage because of her partygoing on board the Manhattan. She was married to the bandleader Art Jarrett. Popular with the press corps, Holm attended the Games anyway as a columnist, with John Walsh and Paul Gallico doing the writing for her. She went on to have limited success with an acting career, starring in Tarzan’s Revenge (1938) alongside Glenn Morris, but was better known for her aquacade spectaculars at the New York World’s Fair. She divorced Jarrett in 1939. She did not have a senator-father, live in London, or fly on the Hindenburg as Eleanor does in the story.

  Hannah Liebermann has a loose parallel with Helene Mayer (1910–53), a German fencer who was the only ‘non-Aryan’ athlete invited to compete for Germany in the 1936 Games (she was half Jewish). Mayer willingly did so and did not regard herself as culturally Jewish. On the podium, after winning the silver in women’s fencing, she gave the Hitler salute—something she would forever after regret—and was criticised for it by Jewish groups. Recently, it has been credibly suggested that she did so out of fear of what might happen to her family after the Games.

  Historical Characters

  Avery Brundage (1887–1975) was chairman of the American Athletic Union and the head of the American Olympic Committee (AOC) in 1936. On the day the Games opened on August 1 he was made the US member on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) after the sacking of Ernest Lee Jahncke, who had strongly advocated a boycott of the Games. He became president of the IOC in 1945. Brundage remains a controversial figure even today. He openly admired Nazi Germany, opposed the participation of women in Olympic sport, and was accused several times in his life of anti-Semitism. He never convincingly explained his decision in Berlin to drop the Jewish athletes Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller from the relay team.

  Martha Dodd (1908–90) was the daughter of Ambassador William E Dodd. She had been the assistant literary editor of the Chicago Tribune before moving to Berlin, where she had a number of romantic liaisons, including some with Nazis. It was her affair with a Russian press attaché (and likely intelligence agent), Boris Vinogradov, however, that led her to become a Soviet spy and eventually flee behind the iron curtain via Cuba. She had hoped to marry Vinogradov, whom she’d met in 1934, but he vanished in one of Stalin’s purges in 1938. The ‘engagement party’ in the story is entirely fictional.

  Ambassador William E Dodd (1869–1940) was the US ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937. A former history professor, he had an intense dislike of the Nazis and eventually resigned his post in frustration, feeling that Washington was not heeding his warnings. He never discovered Martha’s treachery, which only became public in the 1990s.

  Dr Hugo Eckener (1864–1954) was the entrepreneurial force behind the building of the giant commercial airships Graf Zeppelin and Hindenburg. He was a highly vocal critic of the Nazis, but because of his fame and standing at home and abroad was not persecuted, despite several warnings.

  Dr Edmund Forster (b?–1933) was a German psychiatrist who some historians believe treated Hitler at the Pasewalk Military Hospital in 1918. After the Nazi takeover of power he was dismissed from his chair at the University of Greifswald and committed suicide in dubious circumstances in September 1933 after thirteen days of interrogation by the Gestapo. His case notes on Hitler have never been found (and remain the elusive ‘holy grail’ for Hitler scholars).

  Paul Gallico (1897–1976) was a sportswriter for the New York Daily News at the time of the 1936 Games and went to Berlin on board the Manhattan. He went on to write the novels The Snow Goose and The Poseidon Adventure.

  Marjorie Gestring (1922–92) won the gold for the United States in the diving competition when she was just thirteen, at the time the youngest ever gold medal winner.

  Marty Glickman (1917–2001) was a US track and field athlete. He believed he’d been the victim of anti-Semitism by Brundage’s decision to exclude him from the relay team.

  Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) was Hitler’s propaganda minister and a well-known womaniser. At the time of the 1936 Games he had begun a torrid affair with the Czech movie star Lída Baarová.

  Karl Haberstock (1878–1956) was Hitler’s private art dealer. His gallery flourished during the Third Reich by acquiring old masters from escaping Jews at bargain prices and paintings looted by the German armies from European galleries. His appearance on board the Hindenburg in this story is purely fictional.

  Karl Ritter von Halt (1891–1964) was a former Olympic decathlete and the German IOC member from 1929. Despite being a member of the Nazi Party and a general in the SA (Brownshirts), he continued his role in the IOC after World War II with the backing of his friend Avery Brundage.

  Helen Hayes (1900–93), US movie star, was on board the Manhattan.

  William Randolph Hearst Jr (1908–93), son of the newspaper magnate, was on board the Manhattan and rumoured to have been ‘an item’ with Eleanor Holm during the crossing.

  George F Kennan (1904–2005) was a US diplomat in Moscow in 1936 and was on board the Manhattan. In 1952 he became US ambassador to the Soviet Union.

  Ernst Lehmann (1886–1937) was a German Zeppelin commander. Lehmann was on board the Hindenburg’s final flight as an observer. He was an old colleague of Eckener’s, and, unlike Eckener, mildly supported the Nazis, although he never joined the Party. He died a day after the disaster from his injuries.

  Charlie MacArthur (1895–1956), US playwright and screenwriter, married to Helen Hayes, was on board the Manhattan.

  Margaret Mather (1878–1969) was a US passenger who survived the Hindenburg disaster. Incredibly, she walked out of the wreck down the gangway stairs and suffered only minor burns.

  Hans Mend (1888–1942) is not a character in the novel, but his words are quoted in chapter thirty-three (my own translation). Mend was a dispatch rider who had served with Hitler in World War I, but he later fell out of favour and died in a concentration camp. The so-called Mend Protocol was allegedly dictated by Mend in 1939, after the date of this story. Few historians have taken the document seriously because Mend was a petty criminal and a fraudster. Recently it has been given credence by the historian Lothar Machtan.

  Glenn Morris (1912–74) won a gold medal in the Olympic decathlon in 1936, setting a new Olympic record. He features in several close-up shots in Olympia, the film of the Games made by the German director Leni Riefenstahl, with whom he had an affair in Berlin.

  Jesse Owens (1913–80), the hero of the 1936 Games, won four gold medals, including one for the legendary long jump against Carl ‘Luz’ Long described in the story.

  Sir Eric Phipps (1875–1945) was the British ambassador to Berlin from 1933 to 1937 and the brother-in-law of Sir Robert Vansittart. Both of them were acerbic critics of the Nazis. Phipps was recalled from Berlin and replaced with Sir Nevile Henderson, who supported Britain’s policy of appeasement.

  Max Pruss (1891–1960) was the Hindenburg’s commander on its final flight. He was a member of the Nazi Party. He survived the disaster and remained convinced that sabotage was to blame.

  Helen Stephens (1918–94), the ‘Fulton Flash’ from Missouri, won two sprint event medals in Berlin when she was eighteen. She was noted for her large and masculine appearance. Hitler said to her, ‘You’re a b
ig blond girl. You should run for Germany.’

  Sam Stoller (1915–85) was a US sprinter and long jumper. He vowed he’d never compete again after Brundage excluded him from the relay race, saying it had been the most humiliating experience of his life. He did not believe that anti-Semitism was behind the decision.

  Sir Robert Vansittart (1881–1957), known as ‘Machiavelli and soda,’ was the permanent undersecretary of the British Foreign Office. He visited Berlin during the Games and had several high-level diplomatic meetings. He strongly opposed Britain’s policy of appeasement, a stance that cost him his job in 1938.

  Thomas Wolfe (1900–38) was a US novelist famous for Look Homeward, Angel and Of Time and the River. He was in Berlin during the Games and met Martha Dodd.

  Louis Zamperini (born 1917) was a US Olympic distance runner. By his own admission he failed to control his appetite on board the Manhattan, despite Brundage’s warnings about medals being lost at the dinner table, and had gained twelve pounds by the time he reached Berlin. He went on to become a celebrated World War II veteran and an inspirational speaker.

  About the Author

  David John was born in Wales. He trained as a lawyer but made his career in publishing, editing popular books on history and science. In 2009 he moved to Germany to write Flight from Berlin. He lives in Seoul, South Korea, where he is researching his second novel.

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  Credits

  Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce from the following:

  “Let’s Misbehave” from Paris. Words and music by Cole Porter. Copyright © 1927 (Renewed) WB Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission.