Last Stop Vienna

by Andrew Nagorski

  Which was what Hitler was counting on when he and the others were put on trial in Munich in early 1924. The charge against him was high treason, but his plan was to turn the tables on his accusers. That much of his strategy I had heard beforehand from Rosenberg and others.

  The trial, held in Munich in the old infantry school building on Blutenburgstrasse, opened on February 26. I was able to get into several sessions with the help of a press card that Rosenberg had secured for me from one of the right-wing newspapers. I had protested that I’d never get away with pretending to be a journalist, but he claimed all I had to do was take notes along with the others and no one would examine my credentials too closely.

  “They’d recognize one of us, but you’re a young unknown face,” he assured me. He gave me an appraising look. “It’s not a typical face, I’d say, not like most of the muscle around here.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Take it as a compliment. You’re handsome, young, clean-cut. You don’t look like someone who grew up fighting in beer halls. Besides, many of the people in there are on our side and wouldn’t give you away even if they knew.”

  And that proved to be Hitler’s secret weapon during the twenty-four-day trial. The Bavarian authorities had insisted on the trial taking place in Munich to cover up their involvement in the plotting that had preceded the putsch attempt. Hitler wasn’t about to let them get away with that, especially in front of a sympathetic audience. The judge was a nationalist who let Hitler go on as long as he wanted, and even the prosecutor seemed wary about pushing his case very aggressively.

  Hitler quickly put to rest any remaining doubts about his eagerness to fight. At first I was stunned when he admitted to leading the putsch. “I alone bear the responsibility,” he declared. But he hammered home the point that he was fighting for a noble cause. “I am not a criminal because of that,” he said. “If today I stand here as a revolutionary, it is as a revolutionary against the revolution. There is no such thing as high treason against the traitors of 1918.”

  About his accusers, the Bavarian triumvirate, he declared what all of us knew—that they had turned against us only in the end. “If our enterprise was actually high treason, then during this whole period, von Lossow, von Kahr and von Seisser must have been committing high treason along with us, for during all these weeks we talked of nothing but the aims of which we now stand accused.” All around me, I saw nods of agreement.

  I felt my faith in him restored, almost forgetting the chaos of the putsch and how he had fled as soon as the shooting began. In his rendition of events, I saw a pattern that had eluded me then, and I felt a growing pride that I had been one of the participants. I put all this down late at night in letters to Otto. “Hitler is proving that he is a real leader after all, just as you predicted,” I wrote.

  The press was carrying long accounts of the trial, providing Hitler with an audience far beyond the courtroom. You could tell from his words that he was aiming to convince more than the court of the justice of his cause. “Gentlemen, it is not you who pronounce judgment upon us, it is the eternal court of history which will make its pronouncements upon the charge that is brought against us.”

  On the day of the verdict, I arrived early. A crowd had already formed outside, and I saw several women with flowers, begging the guards to give them to Hitler. I laughed when I heard one of them ask whether she could take a bath in Hitler’s tub, but I also felt happy to be on the side of a leader who could inspire such adoration.

  Everyone began shoving when the defendants showed up. They paused in front of the courthouse for a photograph. Hitler, I realized, had gained so much weight in prison that he looked almost chubby. This is going to turn out just fine, I thought. He’s got everyone on his side.

  Inside the courtroom, only Ludendorff was acquitted. Hitler was sentenced to five years, minus the time he had already spent in pretrial detention. I felt dejected, wondering whether the movement could survive his absence for so long. But then I listened to the other parts of the ruling. The court announced that, although Hitler was an Austrian and should be eligible for deportation, they wouldn’t send him away. Citing his bravery during the war when he fought for the German army, it declared that “a man who thinks and feels as German as Hitler” should not be expelled. And the presiding judge specifically mentioned the possibility that Hitler might be released on probation before the end of his sentence, which was the minimum he could have received if found guilty. Most of the other defendants were found guilty of lesser charges and emerged with light sentences. It could have been worse, I thought, much worse.

  Or much better, depending on your point of view. Once again the socialist press was quoting foreign newspaper accounts to buttress its angry condemnations of everything about the trial—how it had been turned into “a propaganda circus” for Hitler, how it had been a mockery of justice. One of the papers I looked at quoted the London Times: “The trial has at any rate proved that a plot against the Constitution of the Reich is not considered a serious crime in Bavaria.”

  I no longer felt endangered because of my small role in the putsch. “It looks like I can do anything I want,” I told Sabine cheerfully. “I’m in the clear.”

  “Does that mean you’ll look for a normal job and forget about politics?” she asked.

  “How can I do that? I’m not sitting in jail, so I have to do what I can to keep things going until Hitler and the others get out.”

  “And then?”

  “And then I’ll see.”

  Chapter Six

  In leather shorts and a Tyrolean jacket, he was standing in the middle of cell number seven, drenched with sunlight on this late April morning.

  “Heil Hitler!” I saluted from the open door. “Happy birthday.”

  He cast me an amused glance. “I’d invite you in, but as you can see, there’s not much room.”

  The cell was overflowing with flowers, gifts and letters, and more were stacked in neighboring cells. The festive air made it easy to forget we were in a prison. Every few minutes someone would call out “Happy thirty-fifth!” and deposit another bunch of flowers or boxes. There must have been enough poppy-seed strudel in cell number seven to feed Hitler his favorite dish three times a day for the next four years that he was supposed to serve. There were packages of ham, bacon and sausages from admirers who didn’t know he was a vegetarian. Hitler had them distributed among the common criminals downstairs, where the rules and conditions were much harsher. Hitler and his fellow Nazi prisoners seemed like boarders whom the management was intent on pleasing.

  Hitler stepped around some of the parcels. “Any messages?”

  “Other than everyone’s greetings, they wanted you to know that the preparations for the national elections are going well,” I reported. “The National Socialist Freedom Movement will field thirty-four candidates in the May elections.”

  His face seemed to darken. “Good, that’s very good. Who’s on the list?”

  “Strasser, Röhm, Feder, Frick, Ludendorff. I can bring you the complete list next time.”

  “Yes, Strasser.” He paused. “Gregor is the organizer here, I take it.” It wasn’t a question.

  Anton Drexler was at my elbow, nudging me away. “Come join us for the noon meal,” he said. “Herr Hitler will come along shortly.”

  Hitler looked at me as if I had just arrived. “Yes, go to the table,” he said brusquely, then turned away.

  I followed Drexler to the common room, where the other prisoners were gathering. They stood behind their chairs, chatting. Drexler pointed to a chair, and I took up the same position, finding myself between Drexler and Rudolf Hess, who had given himself up after the trial—although he could have stayed in Austria, where he had fled. People said that he desperately wanted to be at Hitler’s side.

  I introduced myself, but Hess hardly appeared to notice. His square face and close-set eyes were fixed on the door. Abruptly, the talking stopped, and all eyes turned in the sam
e direction.

  No one moved. Hitler walked in, and someone shouted, “Attention!” He stepped to the head of the table.

  Hess was the first to rush up. “My most heartfelt wishes for your health and happiness,” he declared, bowing slightly. “May you live a long life and, for the sake of Germany, achieve all your goals.”

  Hitler nodded, and Hess hastily stepped back behind his chair. One by one, the others came up with greetings for Hitler.

  “Do I go, too?” I whispered to Drexler as quietly as I could.

  “Everyone does,” he shot back. “Not just on his birthday but every day.”

  After all of the regular diners had paid their respects, I followed. “Birthday greetings from everyone in Munich,” I said stiffly, feeling foolish about repeating myself. “Especially from my comrades in the SA who look forward to serving you again soon.”

  “They will have their chance soon enough,” Hitler responded as he pulled back his chair and sat down.

  Much to my surprise, that was it as far as any reference to politics or the party’s prospects was concerned. As we ate our meal, Hitler visibly relaxed, steered the conversation to the subject of cars, music, plays. I knew nothing about those subjects, so I ate mostly in silence.

  Hess finally acknowledged my presence. “Are you surprised by anything here?” he asked.

  “By the pleasant atmosphere. It’s almost as if this weren’t a prison at all.”

  “It is and it isn’t,” Hess sternly replied. “Prisons are meant to intimidate and humiliate, but no prison could intimidate or humiliate Hitler. He doesn’t allow it to feel like a prison.”

  “Is anything not permitted here?”

  Drexler jumped in. “We can’t leave, but short of that, we’re able to do just about everything we want. Not officially, mind you, but it isn’t hard to get around the rules. After we eat, I’ll show you the newspaper we put out.”

  “And there’s no limit on visitors?”

  “Visiting hours are six hours a week. Don’t tell Hitler that, though. He must have visitors six hours a day.”

  Hitler pushed back his chair and stood up. We all rose, and he looked in my direction. “Wait for Emil—he’ll provide you with my messages for Munich.”

  He turned and left. Emil Maurice, his driver, grinned and scrambled after him. The others began to disperse.

  “He likes to do his writing now,” Drexler said. “So you should get your messages in a little while.”

  We sat back down. “What’s the rest of the day like?”

  Drexler shrugged. “Nothing special. Free time until coffee and tea at four. Afterward, another walk around the garden or sports. Dinner at six in our cells, but we can buy beer or wine if we want. Then it’s more exercise, a final gathering in the common room and lights out at ten. With the exception of Hitler. He often reads till midnight.”

  “What kind of sports?”

  “Wrestling, boxing, workouts on the parallel bars or the vaulting horse.”

  “And Hitler—” I ventured.

  “No, no,” Drexler cut me short. “He’ll referee occasionally, but he never takes part. You know what he once told me: ‘A leader can’t participate in sports because he can’t be seen to lose.’ Makes perfect sense, don’t you think?”

  I nodded eagerly to acknowledge this bit of wisdom.

  Emil Maurice arrived, carrying a small bundle of letters. Unlike the other party prisoners, he looked almost foppish with his thick hair rising in waves above his forehead. He flashed the amused grin that I had noticed earlier.

  He stuck out his hand and grinned again, as if we were sharing a joke. “We were never introduced. I’m Emil, the driver, the fixer, the guy who delivers clean shirts for the boss. A lot of shirts, I assure you. Anything you need to communicate or get done, any special requests, I’m at your service.” He bowed slightly.

  I smiled back. “Yes, sir, I’ll remember that.”

  “It’s not ‘sir’ but Emil.”

  “Fine, I’m Karl,” I added, delighted that someone was willing to treat me as an equal on a first-name basis.

  I took the letters and stuffed them in the inside pocket of my jacket. Then I checked out with the guards, who waved me through without asking what I was carrying, and headed back to Munich.

  —

  My life with Sabine had taken on a domestic routine. I no longer made any pretense of looking for a place to live; it was too comfortable treating her place as ours. Besides, Sabine was happy with the arrangement, dismissing my halfhearted talk of finding somewhere else to live. “Why bother? You’ll pay for some place where you’ll never sleep anyway.” She would laugh and blush slightly. More often than not, those conversations took place in bed or ended up in bed. She didn’t have to do much convincing, but I liked to bring up the subject just to hear her objections. It became a game we both played.

  We had another playmate during those games. Leo, the mutt I had bought for her, was more than six months old, a scruffy, medium-size dog who didn’t want to be left out, whatever we were doing. Whenever I reached for Sabine and began kissing her, he’d be up and barking furiously. His jealousy made us laugh, and we teased him mercilessly, making our kisses noisy and long. At night, though, after he’d settle down at the foot of our bed and go to sleep, we’d try to make love under the covers so that he wouldn’t interfere. But no matter how quiet we tried to be, he’d be up as soon as he heard or felt the bed moving. Before I could do anything to stop him, he’d plant his front paws on the bed and push his head under the covers, his cold nose pressing against our legs or reaching for the center of the action. “Down,” I’d shout, pushing him away. Sabine’s face would be contorted with laughter whether Leo had staged his attack in the worst or best moment.

  During the day, when Sabine was at the doctor’s office, I had time on my hands. I began visiting the beer halls, sometimes meeting Uwe, who was usually between part-time jobs as a housepainter. My work for the party wasn’t regular enough to keep me all that busy, although I didn’t like to admit this to Sabine.

  “You know, you could look for a job,” she told me one morning as she ate her roll before going off to work.

  “I’ve got a job. Besides, have you seen the lines at the unemployment office? I go by every day, and they’re always huge.”

  “I know, but somehow many of the husbands and boyfriends of my friends manage to find something.”

  “You’re ashamed that you have a boyfriend who doesn’t sit in an office somewhere or shovel coal?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “So what did you mean?”

  “Forget it. Do what you want. I have to go to work.”

  We made up that evening and pretended that nothing had happened. Leo went after us again, and we both ended up laughing so hard that I finished with more of a whimper than a bang. We held each other tightly afterward, falling asleep intertwined and happy.

  A couple weeks later, Sabine came home from work and announced that we were going out the next evening. “Petra, Karin and I decided we should organize a party. We haven’t done anything like this for so long.”

  “Go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

  “But this isn’t just a girl party. You and the other guys are coming, too. It’s about time we all met.”

  I had met Petra, a nurse in Sabine’s office who struck me as rather officious, and I had heard about Karin, who had been a classmate of Sabine’s. But I had never spent any time with them, and I had no particular interest in doing so now.

  “We can’t afford a party,” I objected. “And you can’t be thinking of having it here.”

  Sabine wasn’t about to be deterred. “I’m not stupid, you know. We’ve got it all worked out. Karin’s parents have a nice apartment, and they’re away in Garmisch for a few days. She says to bring just a little bit of food and beer.”

  I couldn’t think of any excuse.

  “Come on, Karl,” Sabine pleaded, “this once. We never go out
anywhere anymore.”

  It was true. Since I’d moved in, we hadn’t been to a movie or even a café. My explanation was always that we couldn’t afford it, but what spending money I had tended to disappear in the afternoons in the beer halls. Sabine took care of most of the household expenses.

  “Sure, I’ll go if you want to.”

  Sabine began gathering up some sausages, tomatoes and beer that she had brought home. “You’ll see, it’ll be fun. I know you weren’t impressed with Petra, but she’s warmer than she looks. And Karin is great. She’s the only girl from my class I’ve stayed friends with.”

  Karin’s parents lived near the university, where her father was a professor of German literature. We went by tram, and Sabine—who normally had a terrible sense of direction—led me easily through a maze of streets to their building. “I visited here often when we were in school,” she explained. “Now I usually meet Karin somewhere closer to work. Her parents were always so nice to me: They insisted that I eat with them whenever I came over, even in the hardest times. They knew I was much worse off than they were.”

  The building looked normal enough from the outside, except for a fresh coat of gray paint and sparkling white-framed arched windows that made its neighbors look drab. As we walked up to the third floor, we passed elegant, massive wooden doors with shiny brass handles and locks that suggested wealthy owners. The staircase was impeccably clean and well lit, with nothing like a laundry basket or a bicycle on the landing, as was usually the case in the buildings I knew.