The Vengeance of Rome

by Michael Moorcock

  Röhm argued that the Nazis had brought the language of the NCO to the Reichstag, which was why Hindenburg had been so uncomfortable with it. Röhm added that when people weren’t listening, you had to shout to be heard. The Nazis had been shouting for ten years; it had become a habit.

  Von Schirach adopted that peculiar half-apologetic stance of his class towards admired members of the lower orders. He spoke with a slight lisp, like Röhm, which I think was considered elegantly Viennese.

  Von Schirach introduced himself and his smart boy helpers, Ulrich and Siegfried, who wore the brown shirts and black trousers of the Hitlerjugend. As soon as these formalities were over, he switched to perfect English. He apologised for not having a car for me. All available transport was needed because of the situation in Berlin. In a few more days we might discover if justice would out and the Führer was to become the new Chancellor. These were exciting times. As we spoke, the Führer was sitting in his mountain fastness at Tegernsee brooding on the future and coming to a monumental decision.

  Adding to all his other troubles, said von Schirach, was Hitler’s enormous weight of grief at the death of his poor little niece. Geli had shown signs of instability for some time. Her uncle had done all he could, trying to get her to take a positive interest in the world. He had supported her in every way. Typically, the Führer had cancelled political meetings just to be available to her. He took that sort of interest in all who were close to him. Angela was to have fulfilled her first engagements as a singer, but evidently the anxiety had been too much for her,

  I asked him if he had liked the girl. Oh, yes, he said. He and she had got on very well, though she was a little boisterous with him in her country way. She had been a happy little thing. But sometimes she would sink into dark, black moods. He had seen the Führer at his wits’ end with her. This was the first time I had heard someone close to Hitler use the Führer title without irony. It meant ‘guide’ as well as ‘leader’. It fell naturally from the young man’s lips. I admired his commitment to his Chief, even if my own recent impression of Hitler was somewhat different.

  How was he so familiar with Geli’s state of mind? Well, of course, it was in all the papers. Even those not vehemently anti-Nazi. She and he had been great pals. A jolly, outgoing person fresh as a mountain flower, she had never lived in a big city before which no doubt put an extra strain on her. She could hardly have known what she was doing. But if you read some of the papers, you’d think Hitler had taken a gun and shot her himself. Wasn’t it disgusting what a cynical press did with tragedy! These days no limits were put on the indecencies and uncollaborated scandal they published.

  Von Schirach was innocently sincere. I could not help being charmed by one so young for his age but full of zeal and idealism. I saw no mystery in Hitler’s liking for him, why Hitler had put him in charge of the movement’s idealistic boys. Von Schirach said he would be leaving for the capital fairly soon. Meanwhile, a stiff, old-fashioned Prussian bow and a heel click, given a somewhat burlesque quality by his clothes, and he was at my service. As his boys hefted my luggage, he passed an aristocratic word with the porter and led the way from the hotel. In French I complimented him on his English. He laughed easily. His mother was American, he said. She had been in the theatrical profession and had never bothered to learn German, so he had spoken English until he went to his primary school. His father, though a member of the Prussian Officer Corps, was a great cosmopolitan and famous in Weimar as a theatre director. He had run the Court Theatre, which I presumably knew. ‘We have a great deal in common, Herr Peters. I have a background already in show business, you see!’

  His laughter was open and refreshing. His attempts to create a bond, assuming acting to be my main occupation, were kindness itself. He became more serious. ‘And my family was always very open-minded. They didn’t complain much at all when I joined the Nazis. Of course, it wasn’t the first patriotic organisation I had been in. Now they and Herr Hitler are great pals. He was so sympathetic over Uncle Karl. And that perhaps is why my heart goes out to him now. My uncle killed himself from shame after the sell-out at Versailles. I hate those bastards who stabbed the German fighting man in the back. I’m determined to devote my life to Germany. My family supported me absolutely. I could have joined the Nationalists or one of the more conventional parties, but they did not object. They have always had bohemian friends even before they knew our Führer.’

  He told me all this as we walked rapidly towards the tram stop, his greatcoat flapping around his bare legs, trailed by the Brownshirt boys lugging my bags. The pavements were crowded with busy shoppers and workers beginning to wrap up against the mid-autumn air. The shops were stuffed already with seasonal delights. You would never know the country stood on the brink of economic collapse. I understood the importance of creating a mood of optimism. Every grocery was a riot of red, gold, silver, green and blue. Every carpet shop and furniture store displayed the latest geometric ‘jazz’ patterns. Every third doorway offered the delights of coffee, chocolate and vanilla strudel, their scents mingling with the sour-sweet smell of beer and sausages. The city was warmed by the acrid stink of cigar smoke and burning oil in the sharpening air. The cafes were full. Music from the latest films poured out of them. Everywhere they were playing Lilian Harvey’s wonderful ‘Das gibt’s nur einrnal, das kommt nicht wieder’ — ‘This Happens Once and Never Again’ — which had been the big moment in Der Kongress tanzt. Hinting at a return to the old German values, the song made such a change from the wild, unmusical rhythms of the jungle and the American ghetto which Berliners, at least, had taken to in their millions. I thought about Mr Mix. He would have done well to go to Berlin where to be black was to find instant employment!

  In Munich smart uniforms were still in evidence. Policemen, postmen, civil servants, students, Storm Troopers, Stahlhelm, regular soldiers, Salvation Army and others were everywhere, but the War had taken the best of us. An ambulance sang by, scattering horses and cars. Little boys ran in its wake. I watched them until my view was blocked by a great bakers dray full of hot bread, drawn by a team of massive shire horses. With a police constable’s help, it turned against the traffic like a great ship taking the wind.

  Overhead was a lattice of wires for telephones and electricity. Other cables powered the blue-and-white trams jingling and banging with festive clatter along the broad thoroughfare between tall trees whose golden leaves already clogged the gutters. Horses and motor vehicles jostled, clinked and hooted at pedestrians who dodged in and out of the traffic, much to the disgust of matrons and chauffeurs. Everywhere, in banners and placards, Oktoberfest was anticipated. Already the Bavarian peasant farmers with their equally stolid sons could be seen on the streets. Many of them wore their traditional best. The praises of films were shouted in banner print. Voruntersuchung!! (Storms of Passion), Der Mann, der seinen Mötder sucht. That last was a strange title which struck a chord. How could a man go in search of his own murderer? I never saw the film and so never discovered the answer.

  Willy Fritsch and Charlie Chaplin smiled out at us. Betty Annan lifted her skirts to dance. Emil Jannings was sober and stern. Familiar faces. Marlene Dietrich. Joan Crawford. The big success was Monte Carlo Madness with the debonair Hans Albers, whom some thought I rather resembled. Louise Brooks. Lilian Harvey. Lon Chaney. Advertisements for beer and political parties added more vivid colour to kiosks, cable standards, postboxes and walls, wherever they would stick. Hindenburg was presented as a vital old knight, his stern eyes staring over his proud Prussian moustachios towards his hinted-at retirement. Many showed pictures of Hitler striking heroic poses as saviour of the Fatherland. Nazi banners boldly confronted the Marxist invaders. The threat from the East was a reality to these people who had lived close to the marches where Christianity came face to face with Islam and her allies. But for a miracle, and the courage of a few fighters, Bavaria would be Communist to this day.

  Other posters warned of Jewish power. Still others exhorted us t
o vote Communist, Nationalist, Christian Socialist, Social Democrat, Anarcho-Syndicalist and for Flag and Country. A dozen millennial visions were pasted across the posts and kiosks and walls of that busy modern town. Perhaps it was too late for us to turn again to the New?

  In my view the Nazis were wrong to stop publication of the Bible. They should have let the Old Testament fade into history, remembered only by obscure denominations, revered by a few marginalised sects, like the Apocrypha. The Old Testament and our continued reference to it to this day maintain the Jewish influences all decry but none ever properly address. I cannot understand why such organisations as the White Defence League warn all who will listen about the Bolshevik Jewish threat, yet every Sunday happily tucks its propaganda under their arms and sets off for church! L’histoire est un perpetuel recommencement.

  Germany was witnessing so much electioneering she had become heartily sick of democracy. Democracy got her no further forward. Ruling chiefly by emergency decree, torn between extremes of left and right, the Reichstag had become a laughing stock. Only the NSDAP offered a genuine alternative to all this uncertainty. Only the NSDAP offered a clear advance. And it was obvious from every poster one saw that the NSDAP was Hitler.

  Again, as I passed a particularly dramatic poster of Der Führer, I experienced a slight shock as those same eyes which had stared at me in Tegernsee seemed to bore into me again. A disturbing illusion. Later I wondered if Hitler’s eyes were not mirrors in which we saw everything we desired or feared. Were such shadows entirely creatures of our imagination, fashioned out of mud and entrails and made reality by a triumph of the will? Strange thoughts for a busy Tuesday in the centre of so much banal human activity.

  Munich was vibrant with the sense of coming change. Indeed, she anticipated an apotheosis. A resolution to every dream Germany had nursed from the beginning of the century, when stability and growth would be reflected in the Reichstag’s domination by a Bavarian party, nurtured in Bavarian soil, putting an end to the dominance of ‘Red’ Prussia whose election of so many Socialist deputies in 1914 had precipitated this war. Until now Prussia had been the determining power in Germany’s history. But Munich would always remember the first blows of the Nazi revolution struck during 1923, the year of a noble, if unsuccessful, putsch. Now again there was hope, a spring in every citizen’s step, an optimism which put smiles on faces and displayed an inner radiance. The soul of Germany was returning to life.

  Röhm had the rights of it. Stories of German poverty were dreamed up by the Jewish press, whose owners were only interested in buying cheap stocks in German-owned firms. In spite of all efforts to suppress her, the German economic giant had restored herself to power in less than a decade. We know now how certain alien influences in Germany conspired to produce conditions where only the decent German working people and ex-soldiers, poor mothers and children suffered the results of inflation. Even the Völkischer Beobachter had noticed a preponderance of Jews in the shops, stocking up for a season they enjoyed but did not celebrate. Many were not difficult to spot. Others, of course, were better disguised, with Aryan names and looks which could pass a casual glance.

  We reached the tram stop. Baldur still talked enthusiastically about Hitler and Röhm. He admired both. He knew that Röhm’s bluff foul-mouthed manner hid a sensitive and generous heart. That’s what his men sensed, why they loved him so fiercely.. Schirach spoke of the people who had benefited from Röhm’s open-handedness. He was not a rich man, but was always generous with what he had. A Bavarian of the old, best sort, he knew how to talk to people at all levels. Just as the Führer did. Germany would know true equality under the National Socialist Party. Irrespective of social background, strong men and women would marry and produce the healthiest children in the world, a proud, self-reliant race with room to breathe and grow. Count and carpenter would work side by side to build a finer, cleaner country, whose broad new roads would be laid like wedding ribbons across the nation.

  In response to his enthusiasm I asked a little sardonically if the wedding ribbons would be white.

  ‘Oh, white! Of course!’ He laughed heartily. ’White, white, white. I love white. So much easier to clean. Ha, ha! White for a virgin Germania, white for her Austrian husband! I wrote a poem on the subject for the Führer. He keeps it in his wallet.’ He shook his head as if I had made a great, insightful joke. ‘Poetry is another talent which runs in my family. White for the new Germany, black for our swastika, sign of rebirth, red for our blood, our pure German blood. Our Nazi colours are the true German colours. Do you see?’

  He was only to a degree describing an idealised self. I said I was not the best person to be asked to evaluate a poetic work. I preferred novels and engineering books. ‘Of course you would, of course you would,’ he said rather mysteriously, more or less to himself. ‘Naturally, we are keeping our eye on the Hamburg elections. That will give us a gauge of our power.’ His discussion of strategy and politics was so narrow as to be all but meaningless to me. I was, however, well aware of the urgency of the situation. People scarcely realise these days how the fate of the Nazi Party hung on a knife edge in 1931 and 1932, why Röhm had needed my help so urgently.

  At last the number 47 to Viktualienmarkt came along, and we struggled aboard while the driver complained and other passengers suggested we should have hailed a taxi. The thought had also occurred to me, but I did not have money for a taxi and received the impression young von Schirach, for all his expensive clothes, was not rolling in hard marks either. As it was, the two boys bought their own tickets, and von Schirach paid for me. Siegfried was blushing bright red, an unsuitable colour. The boys were far more embarrassed than von Schirach whose insouciance to social nuance was a characteristic of his class. Clinging to the overhead rail as I sat precariously on the edge of the only available wooden seat, with the boys swaying behind him, he spoke enthusiastically about the Jewish Question. The vehicle was a haze of human breath and smoke. The windows were steamed up, making it difficult to see where we were going.

  Pausing only to assure me we were almost at our stop, Baldur continued with his cheerful babble. I was in agreement with many of his ideas but was also aware, as he was not, that a member of the tribe was sitting behind him glaring her disapproval. Von Schirach was one of those abstract anti-Semites who had nothing against individuals. He could not really tell the difference between a Jew and a Greek. All Mediterranean types looked the same to him. He spoke with the fire of the convert he was, having been inspired as a teenager by Hitler’s oratory. There was definitely something infectious about Baldur’s enthusiasm, his sense that something had to be done and done soon.

  He was soon to be promoted to Youth Leader of the NSDAP, answering directly to Röhm, and he was very proud. The news would shortly be made public. Hitler and Röhm, he thought, were a perfect partnership - the dreaming philosopher and the realistic man of action. A combination of the German virtues. He laughed loudly again. ‘The Führer is a person of rare goodness and sanity, but he needs someone to organise things for him. Like many geniuses, he’s both highly strung and sensitive, though he hides it behind a mask of good humour. These Austrians, you know, are naturally easygoing, like most theatre folk. It’s their charm, isn’t it?’

  Naturally I was a little confused and somewhat circumspect. Less than forty-eight hours had passed since the incident at Tegernsee and while it had faded, as all such things fade with the daylight, I found it still difficult to recall that von Schirach’s heroic saviour of Germany was the same creature I had left covered with excrement in its darkened lair. Von Schirach was an intimate. Had he any notion of the truth? It seemed not. Some people are so innocent they impose their own purity of vision on everything around them. No doubt young Baldur knew nothing of the darker Hitler. Whatever hints he received he interpreted as the Führer’s richness of reference and wisdom.

  I was not particularly surprised by this, nor even by Hitler’s somewhat extreme means of finding release. Many had discover
ed such methods, as Röhm had said, in the heightened conditions of the trenches. Hitler was not the first idealistic hero to pursue a private devil. One recalls the great Gilles de Rais, defender of Joan of Arc, remembered by history as Bluebeard, rapist, murderer and torturer of some two hundred children. Possibly the aberrations occurred in direct contrast to altruistic heroism, as if one could not exist without the other. We have all read the Robert Louis Stevenson tale which he originally wrote as Rabbi Sheckel and Doctor Hide (altered by the Hollywood sons of Shem to a more innocuous title) in which by day the narrator is an upstanding Aryan doctor, but by night becomes a blood-drinking Jewish monster. The film was very popular in Germany in my day. Perhaps, suggests our story, sides of the same soul are completely unsunderable. If one dies, so does the other. Sometimes I think both forces are needed in balance to make a fully functional human being.