From the Ashes (14 page)

“So, Michael’s research,” Jon abruptly began again, trying to push emotions to the background for the time being. “Any idea what he was working on?”

“Nope...” Mara sniffled, once. “Didn’t you ask me that at lunch?”

“I probably did.” Jon frowned and rubbed his temple. “Sorry, a lot’s happened since then.”

“That’s
an understatement. So the guy took the laptop, then. What about the notebook?”

“The notebook? Oh, in the backpack?”

“Yup. And you were wearing the bag at Michael’s. Was the notebook in there?”

“Shoot. Yeah, it was, but I left it at your apartment. When I was getting cleaned up.”

“It should be fine,” she tried to assure him. “If the laptop was an afterthought, then the notebook should be completely off their radar... whoever ‘they’ are. We’ll thumb through it when we get back. Should be something in there worth looking into.”

Jon nodded. “Definitely, although knowing Michael, it’ll be mostly notes and references to other sources. His conclusions about where it all led would be on his laptop.”

“Lucky we’ve got you, then,” Mara said, “since you’re probably the only person on the planet who thinks like Michael.” Jon was conscious of her omission of the verb ‘did’ from the end of her sentence, which would have been an admission that Michael would no longer do anything in the present tense. She smiled encouragingly. “You should be able to reach the same conclusions as Michael.”

He winced.
Hopefully we’ll avoid the conclusion that found him.
“So, beyond the notebook and the laptop, what else do we know? He was going to New York this weekend. Why?”

“I’m not really sure. An interview or something, I think.”

He raised his eyebrows. “An interview? With whom?”

“I don’t know... But I know who might.”

“Who?” Jon asked before the realization dawned on him.

“Dr. Leinhart.” Their voices were as one as they exclaimed the name of Michael’s major professor simultaneously.

“He would know what Michael was working on, wouldn’t he?” Jon asked.

“I would assume so. It’s kind of his job.”

He looked at the date dial on his watch. “Tomorrow’s Monday. What say we pay the good professor a little visit?”

Mara tensed and hesitated a moment before agreeing.

“Mara, if you don’t want to come with, that’s fine. But this is just something I have to do.”

She nodded. “I understand. It’s hard for me, it is. But I think it’s something I need to do too. For Michael. And for myself. And Lord knows you could probably use all the help you can get.”

He smiled. “That I could.” Then his expression sobered. “But you
do
realize how dangerous this could potentially be, right?”

“Jon, my fiance is dead because of this. Which makes me realize both how dangerous
and
how important it is. I’m in.”

***

Twenty minutes later, Jon and Mara were back in her cozy two-bedroom apartment. They sat on the edge of the love seat, Michael’s worn, red-covered, spiral-bound notebook open on the coffee table in front of them.

And they were both hopelessly lost.

The notebook was full of print-outs and photocopies, glued to the pages, accompanied with Michael’s scrawling in the margins, and, at times, on the copied manuscripts themselves. Statements issued by top politicians. Major foreign policy decisions. Earnings reports of mega-corporations. Philanthropic enterprises and awards.

All from the 1930s.

Even with Michael’s commentary, Jon and Mara could find no links between the articles, reports, and other research crammed into the notebook. It was like trying to solve a 5000-piece puzzle without the picture on the box as a guide. With no idea of what their finished result was supposed to look like, they were going at it blind. Michael’s conclusions – the bigger picture into which all of these puzzle pieces fit – must have been on his laptop.

Jon turned the page again. A photocopy of a German-language newspaper was pasted just below a note in Michael’s handwriting, identifying it as being from the March 24
^th
, 1932 edition of a periodical called
Die Stimme.

“German?” Mara turned to Jon. “Do you know German, too?”

“Jawohl, fraulein.
Just one of the many languages Michael and I learned in our youth,” he answered in a deep, pretentious voice dripping with mock arrogance.

“Well, then read it, Mr. Worldly.”

Jon peered down at the clipping. The copy quality wasn’t the best, and the fact that it was printed in a gothic font and in a secondary language for him didn’t help his reading. A few lines in, though, he drew in a sharp breath.

“What?” Mara asked from his side, impatient to find out what the article said.

“Strange... It says that the NSDAP received a large sum of cash for campaign support from an undisclosed foreign benefactor.”

“What?
Pretend I don’t know as much about history as you do and explain, please.”

Jon shook his head quickly, as though shaking an idea out of his head. “Sorry. Um, let’s see, where to start...”

“How about what the NSDAP was,” Mara offered. “Or is.”

“No, no, it’s ‘was.’ In this incarnation at least.” A grim look crossed his face before he continued. “The
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
English translation: the National Socialist German Workers Party. Often shortened to National Socialists, what we, today, know as—”

“The Nazis.”

Jon nodded solemnly. “Bingo. Before they were the scourge of the Western world, they were a subversive political party in Weimar Germany.”

“The Weimar Republic was the government that ruled Germany after World War I, right?”

“Yep. That was one of the requirements of the Treaty of Versailles: the Imperial government had to abdicate its rule and give power to a new democratic system. The new constitution was written in the medieval town of Weimar. Hence, the Weimar Republic.”

Jon paused, stroking his chin with one thumb. “How much do you know about the Treaty of Versailles? Specifically about how it related to Germany.”

“I know Germany was forced to sign it after World War I by the victors: Britain, France, and Russia – also known as the Triple Entente. And I know Germany thought they got screwed over by it.”

“They kinda did get screwed over. Part of the dictate of the treaty forced the German Empire to change their system of government to the first democracy in the region’s history.”

“Kinda ironic, isn’t it?” Mara said. “I mean, democracy, ‘rule by the people,’ being forced upon a people by outsiders.”

“Indeed it was. And that was one of the reasons it ultimately didn’t work. Many in the new Germany resented the new government and its being put there by foreigners. As punishment, no less. Some went so far as to accuse the Weimar government of simply being a puppet of the French or British, or even the Soviets.”

Jon got up from the couch and began pacing the room. It was a habit he picked up from Michael, being unable to sit still when weaving a tale from history. “But there were plenty of other reasons it failed. And most of them traced back to the Treaty of Versailles. The French, ticked about how badly their country had been ravaged by the Germans during the war, and in fact, several times in the previous generation since the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870s, decided that Germany should A: remain weak so they couldn’t rise up and attack France again as they had been wont to do over the past century, and B: should be forced to make reparations payments to the Allied powers, specifically France, to make up the damage that had been done. Never mind the fact that Germany’s economy and infrastructure were as devastated as any in Europe and they could hardly afford to repair the damage their own country had suffered, much less the exorbitant sums that France charged them. The U.S. argued against the payments; the British, not wanting to anger their allies across the channel, took a relatively neutral position. Eventually the reparations payments made it into the treaty, albeit with a lessened amount.”

“A compromise?”

“Yeah, pretty much, although it essentially still had the same effect as the original French proposition. German failure. But, thanks to intervention by American Big Business, it happened a little differently from the way the French might have expected. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.” He forced himself to stop pacing and sat back down next to Mara. “Where was I?”

“The Treaty of Versailles?” Mara said, adjusting herself on the loveseat’s cushions.

“Oh yeah, right. Another clause that the French demanded be in the treaty basically said that the Germans were responsible for World War I, the infamous ‘War Guilt Clause.’ Of course, Germany only entered in because they were allied with the Austro-Hungarians, who, in fact, did start the war. And this was one of the things that pissed the Germans off most, having to accept full responsibility for a war that was, at most, only partly their fault.”

She shook her head. “But it
was
Germany who was the biggest threat to France, both during the war and throughout history.”

“Yeah, which is why France came down so hard on them. Now bear in mind that the Germans were forced to kick out their own imperial government and instate a democratic one. Guess what the new government’s first act in office was?”

“Signing the treaty?”

“Bingo.” Jon’s left leg was bouncing up and down nervously, his body’s only outlet for the restless energy that had him pacing just moments earlier. “They had to sign the Treaty of Versailles, taking full responsibility for all the damage that the war had done, both in principle and in cash. Almost immediately, citizens started calling for the new leadership’s head. They claimed that the Weimar government had sold Germany out, that the Jews had infiltrated the halls of power and were trying to sell the nation into the slavery of foreigners—”

“Wait, they blamed the Jews? And this was pre-Hitler?”

“Well, Hitler was around, but he hadn’t found the Nazis just yet, and made them into the powerhouse that they would soon become. No, anti-Semitism had been around for centuries in Europe. And with the recently published
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
that claimed to reveal the evil subversive conspiracies of the Jewish race, anti-Semitism was at a peak. Besides, everybody loves a scapegoat, and the Jews provided a historically acceptable one. Hitler just capitalized on the established fears and prejudices of the populace to promote his message.”

Mara crossed her arms and sat back in the loveseat. “Bastard.”

Jon quickly nodded in silent agreement before continuing. “So anyway, from the get-go, lots of people felt the Weimar Republic would fail. Some
wanted
it to fail, and worked actively to try to ensure its failure, creating public discord and sowing malicious rumors about the government. And the first few years were quite rough. The reparations payments were yet another thorn in the side of an administration trying to create and maintain the first democratically elected national government in German history. All the cards were stacked against them: the reparations payments, the enemies within, the widespread feelings of betrayal by and distrust of the government, the inexperience of the people and culture with democracy, the critically damaged infrastructure that had to be repaired. And in 1923, the country’s economy almost collapsed entirely.

“In rushes the American cavalry, only instead of John Wayne on a white steed, it’s banker and political advisor Charles Dawes with a proposal to rescue Germany economically.” Jon stood and began pacing again, this time gesticulating with his hands to illustrate his points. “The international committee he chaired proposed a series of loans from American banks to German companies, who were able to increase the GDP, enabling Germany to make the reparations payments to France and Great Britain, who in turn were able to pay the Americans back on the loans that helped sustain them throughout World War I. And around and around it went. A tremendous circle of money that saw a lot of unscrupulous American bankers getting filthy rich.”

“Wait, tell me about those loans that we gave Britain and France.”

Jon stopped pacing for a moment and looked at her. “Well, you know the First World War began in 1914, right?”

“Yeah, with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Of Austria. He was killed in Sarajevo by a Serbian nationalist, right?”

He nodded. “‘The shot heard ‘round the world,’” they called it. One bullet that started the most destructive war the world had yet seen. That happened in 1914, but the United States didn’t enter into the war until 1917, a year before it finally ended.”

“Just like in World War II: we wait until our allies’ situation is sufficiently desperate,” Mara said with a smirk, “then we swoop in to save the day.”

He shrugged, still standing but resisting the urge to pace. “Eh, not quite. Up until 1917, U.S. banks had provided our allies with massive loans to fund the war effort. Then, three years in, we finally joined the war militarily, despite the protests of many Americans over getting ‘involved in foreign entanglements,’ to quote the famous admonition of George Washington.

“In truth, there were a lot of reasons why we finally got involved. First, our key allies in the Western world, namely France and Great Britain, were in danger of falling to the Central Powers. Second, Russia had all but pulled out of the war, the country having been thrust into civil war. This hindered the Allied war effort, but also added the danger of communist revolution, one that American policymakers feared might spread to neighboring countries like an infectious disease, eventually taking down some of America’s key trading partners and allies, as well as possibly disrupting the capitalist system in America herself. In fact, did you know that immediately
after
World War I, we stationed soldiers in Russia to try to ensure that the communists failed in sustaining their revolution?”

She made a little “O” with her lips. “You’re kidding.”

“No joke. And let me tell you, it pissed off the Russians, especially after Wilson made all his famous promises about the right of every nation to self-determination of its leaders, type of government, type of economy, and so forth. Our government denied it for a while, but the Russians knew from the beginning. Later, when the Nazis were besieging Leningrad and other Russian cities during World War II, Stalin alleged that the American and British reluctance to open a second front in Western Europe was a deliberate attempt to have the Nazis and the Soviets finish each other off, and then sweep in and take over whatever was left. He was probably right, too. I’m guessing you already know about the Red Scare in the post-war years, right?”