The Wooden Shepherdess (20 page)

But
five years
' total eclipse for Hitler, like Toni rotting forgotten? The Code did also provide that the prisoner could be released on parole after serving a bare six months; and with Justice-Minister Gürtner tipping the scales of Justice, a little bird said....

So Hitler returned to Landsberg, shattering finally Toni's peace: for instead of the former handful of Nazis with him, the fruits of this main and one or two minor trials had now brought their numbers to forty—including Willi, still limping a bit from the wound he got in the Putsch. With Hitler allowed all the visits he cared to receive, this formerly quiet retreat was a bedlam indeed in Toni's eyes.

Few of these visitors came empty-handed. On Hitler's thirty-fifth birthday (bedazzled warders informed the Count) the flowers and parcels had filled some three or four rooms; and for Willi, like all the rest of the starveling rank and file, life had never before been so easy. They'd all the fine food they could eat, sent in by those outside admirers; and when they had eaten too much, a private gymnasium where they could work it off afterwards.

Hitler himself could never take part in their sports, for a Leader must never risk his charisma by being defeated—not even at dominoes. Thus he began to show signs of putting on weight on his prison diet of prime Westphalia hams and the like washed down with occasional brandies. His cheeks began to fill out, and he seemed more relaxed: his mind still ran like a mill-race, but nervously more relaxed. At first his harangues to the Inner Circle had never ceased; but no one on holiday wants to hear nothing but shop, so presently some bright lad remarked to the Führer that all this ought to go in a book—and it worked. Thereafter Hitler spent most of his time in his private study, writing
Mein Kampf
. The rays of the midsummer sun shone in on the rosy cheeks of an almost contented Hitler, dictating to Hess by the hour what Hess took down on a battered old Remington. That left everyone else pretty free to enjoy his own form of fun: which in Willi's case mostly was reading Westerns, and practicing on the flute.

In short, they had nothing to fear but release.

*

It was not till July (that July of 1924 which had seen Augustine already ensconced in the New England woods) that Franz paid at last his belated visit to Toni. They talked about anything rather than Hitler. The passing effect on Franz of those trial speeches had long worn off—and anyway, wasn't the man in jail for the next five years and his bolt incontestably shot? For Franz (like most other folk) took “finish” for granted.

But two days after this Landsberg visit Franz and Reinhold met by chance in the Marienplatz and Reinhold carried his young friend off for a drink. The Eminent Jurist didn't seem nearly so sure: “‘Five years,' say you? But that prison sentence was only a farce, for Berlin's benefit. Redwitz thinks he'll be out by August; and once he rids himself of Rosenberg's crazy racist ideas the man could go far.... But look! That's Carl over there, with his tongue hanging out: he's a bird-witted scamp but one of the intimates. Let's call him over, and hear the latest.” Reinhold cupped his hands to his mouth: “Carl, my treasure!” he called like hailing a cab: then he whispered to Franz as the man approached, “I can't ever help teasing Carl: if I go too far you must kick me under the table.”

Franz recognized “Carl” at once. Two days ago they had found themselves sharing the pleasant walk from Landsberg Fortress back to the railway station. Both had remarked on the singular baroque charm of that little town set on the wooded banks of the Lech; and both had joined in deploring Sir Hubert Herkomer's infamous “Mutter-Turm.” But once in the train this fellow had talked about nothing but Hitler: how he and Hitler were close as two peas on a pod, and how Hitler prized his advice. By Kaufering Junction Franz had had more than enough, and had got in a separate carriage.

But Carl at first was a bit hard to draw. “There is no Nazi Party: you know very well that the Courts have dissolved it,” he said morosely, and sat there biting his nails.

“True. But this new ‘Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Freiheits-Bewegung' which did so well at the spring elections: don't we see all the same names? The old Nazi nucleus, bound man to man by the bonds which Adversity forges?”

This touched Carl on the raw: “‘Bound together' my foot!” he exclaimed: “They're fighting like cats.” Then he added, defensively: “That's betraying no secrets: they do it in public, worse luck!”

“I did hear that Rosenberg threatens to prosecute Streicher and Esser for Defamation,” said Reinhold. “In all this fun-and-games, whose side are you on?”

Carl drew in his chin a bit primly: “It isn't so much any question of sides as of levels. Rosenberg ranks as a lofty Thinker: with Strasser and Röhm he stands for our highest Nazi ideals. But Streicher and Esser are Calibans: sub-human brutes, who must both be kicked out of our Movement—and kicked so hard that it hurts, it's the only language they understand.”

Carl drained his glass with a flourish, while Reinhold murmured to Franz: “But Streicher and Esser.... Observe that they too wear metal-toed boots.” Then Reinhold continued aloud, to Carl: “It must be horrid for decent chaps like your-self and Rosenberg, both of you intellectuals, forced to consort with such Canaille as Streicher and Esser.... But by the way,” he added off-hand: “They tell me that poor old Göring's been kicked out already? Why's that—except that Göring's knocked out by his martyr's wound, and recovering somewhere abroad?” (“Unlike Esser and Streicher,” he left unsaid, “so very much here on the spot.”) “But what has Glamour-Boy done?”

“I know, I know.... But you see, Röhm needs a completely free hand rebuilding the Militant Arm and Göring might try to take over again if he could.”

Reinhold's knowing look was downright embarrassing: catching his eye the poor Carl wriggled, and looked confused.... “But what has
he
got to say of all this—the Leader himself, God bless him?” asked Reinhold, erecting his finger as if in a miniature Fascist salute. “Doubtless you visit him often?”

“Of course—I am closeted with him weekly.” Carl's raddled face broke into satisfied smiles: he was never the man to stay solemn too long, and his smile was the key to his charm. “I must put him wise, or—shut up in Landsberg with idiots like Hess—how else could he know what went on?”

“So you are his eyes and ears? Dear boy that must help him no end, with your balanced searching intelligence.” Much as Reinhold enjoyed this teasing, he let that fact not appear at all in his flattering voice. “And doubtless the Leader opens his mind to you too, so there's much you can tell us. For instance: I take it his noble soul is wholly delighted at Röhm's astounding success resurrecting the Storm Troops?—Although some less altruistic spirit, perhaps, might fear that the stronger they grow the more Prime Minister Held gets alarmed and postpones his release....”

Carl shook his head: “Why on earth should that organization's success affect Hitler's release? As Held must know, the Frontbann is nothing to do with Hitler: Röhm insists on the Militant Arm's complete independence of civil Party control.”

“Oho! So all Hitler rules nowadays is the purely political arm?” Carl nodded. “And yet, a little bird tells me that even here some folk in the Party would like to see Hitler brought down a peg.”

“The terriers yap while the mastiff is chained.” Carl laughed, but a little uncertainly.

“So, then: at least Political-Generalissimo Hitler would have to approve such purely political changes of stance as this new competing for seats in Reichstag?” (No answer; but maybe Carl was too busy ordering drinks.) “And Rosenberg, Strasser and Ludendorff hand-in-glove with that ‘Patriot' group in the North?”

Carl's face was a deeper red. “But that's only tactics ... and tactics should surely be left to the man on the spot....”

“By whom you must mean Rosenberg—Leader ‘protem,'” said Reinhold; and something in Reinhold's voice made Carl glance up at him warily, scenting further danger. Then came the crucial question: “But all these public insults to Thinker Rosenberg, insults to Hitler's own Deputy-Designate: doubtless the Führer always comes down on his Deputy's side—and with every ounce of his weight?”

Carl seemed so unwilling to answer that finally Franz chipped in: “But my friend Lothar says that Rosenberg's just a louse they want to help Hitler get out of his hair!”

Thus it was Reinhold who kicked Franz under the table; but just too late. Carl looked at the interrupter with shocked distaste, then rose and began to make his excuses. But Franz ignored the kick for the sake of a parting shot: “ ‘The Louse' they all of them call him, and ‘Pie-faced Highbrow'! While Esser and Streicher they think the world of....”

“Now you've torn it!” said Reinhold, as soon as the two were alone.

But Franz only frowned. “Lothar says it's all in a terrible mess: he is near despair. If Hitler but knew what goes on....”

“If he ‘knew'? Do you think he depends for news on that vain little fool? He's as many eyes as a fly—and I bet you they don't miss much.”

“Then why, if he knows that what's left of the Nazi Movement is tearing itself in pieces, does Hitler just sit there in Landsberg and dream?”

“Come-come! Would you have him clamp down on dissensions and reappear later to find the Party united ... behind someone else?” (Franz was struck dumb.) “He can well afford to sit dreaming in Landsberg: the only job on his hands at the moment is setting his friends by the ears—and that he could do on his head.”

“You mean ... he's deliberately pulling down all he's given his life hitherto to constructing?”

“Exactly. For isn't it better to burn empty shoes yourself than leave them for somebody else to step in? And once he comes out of jail what he's built up before he can build up again. So let me make a confession: I used to underrate Hitler, but now for one single decision of downright genius off comes my hat to him.
Rosenberg
—picking the one man to take his place who couldn't conceivably! Just imagine the fugitive Hitler, crazed with pain from his broken shoulder: there's five bare seconds to think in before his arrest and in which to scribble ‘Herr Rosenberg, YOU lead the Party from now.' If that wasn't genius, tell me what is.”

“Then you purport to find,” said Franz heavily, “depths in this fellow of cunning which I, though a student of politics, had not discerned?” (Reinhold concealed his amusement.) “We've no mad charlatan here, you suggest, but a Machiavelli?” Franz paused for a term of frowning thought, but finally shook his head. “No. For that doesn't tie up at all with the Hitler who launched that imbecile Putsch.”

“Mind you, I think he's changing,” conceded Reinhold: “I think the run of Wagner's ‘Rienzi' is over. We'll see no more of the martyred ‘People's Tribune.' His next production is much more likely ‘The Meistersingers'—of course with appropriate changes of casting: the gifted amateur learning the rules of the silly professionals' game and beating them at it hands down....”

He signed to the waiter to bring him the bill; for much as he liked young men he couldn't help tiring of Franz.

*

That “imbecile” Putsch.... Reinhold, alone on his way to the Courts for a boring case, gave rein to his new conception of Hitler's political genius: of Hitler, that is, as someone whose “imbecility” lay in thinking five jumps ahead of everyone else.

That fore-doomed Putsch.... Well, suppose it had never been launched: what then?—And this seemed the right approach: for indeed if Hitler had failed to stage his mammoth diversion the very same night might have seen Prince Rupprecht made King—and would likely have seen Bavaria leaving the Reich, the signal for similar fragmentation all over Germany.... Germany back to the days before Bismarck, in fact: the one thing Hitler had got to prevent, if he aimed at one day ruling a whole German Reich—prevent it at even the risk of his life.

His Daemon would stick at nothing to get to the top! Down Reinhold's spine ran a shiver, in spite of the summer weather.

And yet (thought Reinhold) were genius and utter determination enough for an ignoramus whose incomprehension of anything more than the here-and-now of hand-to-hand politics seemed abysmal, for one who could place his ideological trust in that worthless Rosenberg rubbish? What could this untaught guttersnipe know of the world-situation, of all the multitudinous issues he'd find on his plate if he ever did get to the top?

Surely a mind as untutored as his was like one of those maps in the Middle Ages which only showed the cartographer's own stamping-ground in accurate detail, surrounded by fabulous beasts and Terra Ignota and Ocean. Supposing he did “flog himself up the peaks” to the ultimate summit of power, how could a man like that survive for a day when he got there? This curbside and beer-hall stuff, till now, had been mere snakes-and-ladders: you picked yourself up none-the-worse and made a fresh start if you put a foot wrong. But the higher he got the harder he'd fall; and he'd find those “peaks” he aspired to were one continuous butter-slide....

Reaching the court, Reinhold the Eminent Jurist startled an usher by spanking his own behind like someone scolding a horse: “Reinhold Steuckel,” he murmured: “You eminent goose! You were getting as silly as he is, you'd lost all sense of proportion!”

So Reinhold took his seat in the court reassured.... Or, was he?

Once that Mammoth-Spectacular Trial was over other sensations followed it, other headlines; and ninety-nine people out of a hundred forgot it—even the politicians themselves, so busy (like Gilbert) keeping their eyes on the ball. As for Tom-Dick-and-Harry (or Gustav and Emma Krebelmann), politics after all was just a Cloud-Cuckoo-Land lived in by Cloud-Cuckoo-Landers, and hardly impinging on real people at all. If only historians knew that what matters to real folk has to be something real! Something like getting one's claws into Walther von Kessen's forests, or Gretl scalding her hand too badly to sweep.... Or our own little Ernst still catching trouble at school (for how could the Goddess of History smile on a boy who couldn't remember her dates?).