The first time the art expert had driven up this road it had been at night, and he remembered the car lights sweeping over these tree-clad slopes. Irma Barnes had been in the seat beside him, and Trudi Schultz had been in the back seat—being smuggled out of Hitlerland by the least suspected of all routes. That had been the end of Lanny’s first marriage and the beginning of his second, though he hadn’t known it until later that night. The last time he had come here had been with Laurel, and that had been the beginning of his third marriage, though he hadn’t known it either. It had been almost four years ago, in the last dreadful hours before the German invasion of Poland; the two Americans had made their feeble effort to stave off the calamity, but in vain.
II
When they came to the gates which barred the road into the estate, the car halted and was searched. Then they drove in to the main building and waited a minute or so until the roly-poly Herr Kannenberg emerged. This former restaurateur of Munich was the Führer’s steward and entertainer; also, apparently, his official greeter; Lanny always suspected that he was sent out in order to make certain that the person who came in the name of Herr Budd actually was that person. The greeting was effusively cordial, just as it would have been in the café if the son of Budd-Erling in evening clothes had been giving a dinner party that might cost a thousand marks at their old valuation.
Lanny was taken in by the side door and searched again, but it was less unpleasantly thorough. He emerged into the main hall, a great, almost square apartment with heavy beams overhead; there were panels of the same beautiful wood and a masterpiece of painting in the center of each panel. At the far end of the room was a sight for Lanny Budd’s sore eyes—if by any chance he had got them from the bright sun over the Alps. Pacing up and down in front of the immense window that looked out over the mountains was a tall erect man in a dark gray suit, with a long solemn face and close-cut blond hair—Lanny’s boyhood friend, the Komponist, Kurt Meissner.
Lanny hastened to him with a glad greeting; he would have had to simulate that emotion even if he had not felt it. A strange psychological conflict when a friend of one’s youth goes wrong in his later years; one cannot forget the old sentimental feelings, and at the same time one cannot ignore the present divagation—at least not if it is along the lines of Nazi-Fascism. For this is a creed of anti-tolerance, and it does not let you rest, it does not permit of neutrality, it compels you to be actively for or against. Lanny hated Kurt Meissner’s creed with all his heart and soul; it was a deadly thing, a creation of the devil or whatever served that role in the modern world. Yet Lanny loved Kurt Meissner; he loved the genius he had watched evolving, he loved the teacher who had quoted to him the phrases of idealistic philosophy. That these phrases could be used in the service of racial bigotry, of fanaticism and wholesale murder, was the most tragic discovery of Lanny’s life. He should have learned it from Shakespeare, who had warned that the devil could cite Scripture.
The fact that the old feelings were still in his heart made it easier for Lanny to play his role. He had only to remember how things had been from the age of thirteen to nearly twice that. He could quote Goethe and Schiller, even Heine; he could play music, even Mendelssohn and Chopin—for Kurt was “broadminded” and did not carry his distrust of Jews and Poles into the world of the arts. He must not quote the more crude and brutal Nazis, for Kurt was ashamed of these and would expect Lanny to continue as the young idealist—a year younger than his self-appointed mentor.
So now Lanny caught Kurt’s right hand—the uninjured one—and wrung it, saying, “Welch frohes Wiedersehen!” Kurt explained that the Führer’s secretary had telephoned to Schloss Stubendorf, instructing Kurt to come to Breslau by train, where he would be put on a dispatch plane and brought to the Führer, the place not specified. Here they were, and Lanny cried, “Wunderbar!” They settled in two chairs in front of that famous large window, and Kurt told the news since their last meeting, and Lanny told such news as it was safe for a Nazi zealot to hear. Kurt considered it amazing that Lanny was able to get into Germany, and Lanny didn’t say how he had done it, but took refuge in the statement that the Führer had a way of getting what he wanted. The other asked no questions, for if the Führer wanted him to know, the Führer would tell him.
III
Presently the godlike one came in. He was in a pitiable state of nervousness; the others saw it, and Lanny understood that Kurt felt the same grief that Lanny felt when he saw the weariness of his own leader. Both leaders were wearing themselves out in the service of the cause they believed in; and which of them was right the future would decide. The Führer’s flabby face twitched, and his left arm had become helpless; Kurt’s was partly helpless too, though for a different reason, an injury in an air raid.
Hitler greeted his new guest and said, “I am here at the Berghof by Dr. Morell’s orders; he insists that I need a rest.” This was the nearest he could come to an apology; he meant that it distressed him to be away from military headquarters in the midst of a double crisis. The American visitor replied that our bodies could be a great nuisance at times; he himself had been all but knocked out by the sultry heat of Rome, which rarely let up. It was a delicate way of saying to the great man, “Do not blame me if the information I bring you is not all that you expect.”
“Tell me what you have learned, Herr Budd,” said the Führer; he could not wait for even a minute or two of social preliminaries. Kurt offered to leave, but the master said, “Nein, nein! I keep no secrets from you”—which of course wasn’t true, but was most gracious.
Lanny delivered his prepared story. He didn’t have to vary greatly from the truth, it was just a matter of selection. He told of his interviews with Badoglio and with Ciano and Grandi; he had reported in writing, but now he could tell in more detail, describing the personalities and giving his estimate of the characters. He was careful not to hint at those persons who didn’t want publicity, such as d’Angelo and the Marchesa; he implied that he had penetrated to the higher-ups on the basis of his father’s reputation.
He said that the effect of the bombings had been to infuriate the populace of Rome and to prolong resistance; he could safely say that because nobody could disprove it, and it was what Hitler would choose to believe. For ten years Adi Schicklgruber had been living in a court; which meant that he had surrounded himself with persons who would tell him what he wanted to hear and nothing else. It was surely not up to Lanny to change that regimen.
“Grandi and Ciano are dead ducks now,” said the visitor and explained the American phrase, thus bringing the first smile to Adi’s worried face. Badoglio was the man of the hour, and Lanny answered a string of questions about this “Duke of Addis Ababa.” There could be no question that he meant to go on with the war; he had declared even stricter martial law in the city, and he had given Lanny positive assurances in the presence of a third person, an old friend. Of course no one could tell how long he would remain of that mind, the Italians were a volatile people, knowing nothing of German Zucht und Ordnung. The riotous scenes which had occurred in the Balcony Room of the Palazzo Venezia were a mockery of statesmanship; Lanny told the details, and apparently Hitler had not heard them, though, of course, he may have been pretending as a means of checking on his agent.
Lanny praised again the conduct of the German troops in Rome; even the natives could not deny that they were magnificent. The natives, of course, were thinking only of themselves. The rich wanted to play and gossip at the golf club, as if there had never been a war in the world; the black marketeers wanted to reap their fortunes, the politicians wanted to keep on the winning side, and the poor took what was given to them, which was not much. How tragically different from Germany, where everybody was cared for alike; where all knew they could trust their government, and did so! Deutschland über Alles!
It was a good report, and its effect was heightened by the presence of Kurt Meissner. Most of it was new to him, and he listened with deep interest, and was proud of the Am
erican friend whom he had introduced to the Führer fifteen or more years ago. Kurt voiced his opinion, and it carried weight because Adi always found it easier to trust those persons who had known him before he took power and therefore were less open to suspicion of self-seeking.
He asked, “What are you planning to do now, Herr Budd?” And Lanny replied that he had in mind to return to America and inquire into the affair with which the Führer had charged him. He didn’t hint that it was the affair of getting President Roosevelt kidnapped, for that might have shocked Kurt and he might have been unable to believe that Lanny was attempting such a job. Hitler didn’t mention it either, and Lanny wondered if he too was afraid of offending the moral sensibilities of his great Komponist. A statesman has to learn to live on different levels—and he must not get them confused.
IV
Lanny could guess that the Führer’s quack doctor had told him he was worrying himself ill over the turn in the tide of battle, and that the tormented man had planned to get himself an evening of happiness with two old friends who would remind him of the good days when everything had been coming his way. He took the pair up to his elegant study, saying, “We are going to have dinner by ourselves; it will be more gemütlich.” Lanny was glad, because he was an enemy alien, well known to the domestic and military staffs, and he did not relish the ordeal of facing them all.
The host pressed a button, and Herr Kannenberg came running. “Schicken Sie Eva,” said Adi, “und das Essen—schnell!” The little roly-poly hastened out, and presently there came into the room a young woman about whom Lanny had heard on his last visit but whom he had never seen. She was in her twenties, a brunette, somewhat plump; she was pretty, kind, and placid, and wholly untroubled by brains. “Das ist mein liebe Freundin, Eva Braun,” said the Führer. That was introduction enough, and Hitler didn’t bother to name the two men; Eva gave them the briefest possible smile, then seated herself on the couch beside her master, and thereafter devoted her attention exclusively to him. Kurt did not address a single word to her during the evening, and Lanny made note of this example and followed it. Eva was a part of Adi’s rest cure.
Kannenberg came running again, followed by an SS man wheeling a table with dishes, cutlery, glasses, and a covered soup tureen. A larger table was placed in front of the couch and a meal was quickly got under way; the steward helped, something that would have been beneath his dignity had he not been doing it for the greatest man in the world. Perhaps he hoped that he would be told to set a fifth place for himself, but that did not happen. There was, first, the inevitable noodle soup; and while they were eating it—Hitler not without sounds—the wheel-table was rolled off and came back with the second course. The Führer’s vegetable plate with a poached egg on top and two slices of whole-meal toast were ceremoniously placed before him. The others had generous helpings of roast chicken, with rich gravy, and potatoes and turnips. The food was hot and well cooked, and made an acceptable wartime meal.
The Führer’s partner, the Italian Number One, had been dumped off his seat of power, and this was an event of enormous significance to Hitler. “Tell us how it came about,” he said; and that set for the secret agent a task of no little delicacy. He had thought much about it and had decided that the way of safety lay in emphasizing all those factors which made Italy different from Germany, and Il Duce different from his opposite number. The instability, the inefficiency, the cowardice of generals who had come home from the field of defeat and of admirals who did not dare go out and give battle—these things excluded the possibility that Italy might be taken as a precedent and that there could be any warning for a Führer in the downfall of a Duce.
Lanny referred lightly to the sexual corruption, being in the presence of a lady whom he hardly knew. But Hitler said, “Tell us about that jackass Ciano and his widows.” Esel, und Sohn eines Esels! Thus commanded, Lanny described the ladies at the golf club and in the salons; he gave one or two samples of their spicy conversation, and Adi was diverted thereby. “Tell us all,” he insisted. “We are no prudes here.”
Lanny understood that the worse he made Rome appear, the more he would justify Hitler for being unable to prevent its bombing, so he proceeded to shoot the works. He told about Edda Ciano, Mussolini’s daughter, the sharp-faced hysterical woman who, it was reputed, quarreled with both her husband and her father and chose her lovers from all classes of the population. He told about Mussolini himself, so proud of his amours that he had his secret service keep an official record of them, and the score to date was seventy-three. The latest flame was named Clara Petacci, and she had been set up in a palace, and what a hellcat she was! Her horde of relatives all had to be given official positions, and her father, a doctor, had waged a minor war to have the ambassadorship to Spain given to a friend whom Ciano, in Lanny’s hearing, described as “an old jailbird, an ignorant man, a swindler, and obscene.”
Chuckling over this story, Adi patted his Eva on her plump knee and remarked, “So etwas wurde meiner Eva nie einfallen!”
V
The meal was eaten and the table cleared. Herr Kannenberg lingered, obviously hoping to be requested to bring his accordion and favor the company with his Bavarian G’stanzln. But no, this was going to be a highbrow evening, and the round little steward was not invited; he took himself sadly away, and Hitler said to his American guest, “The first time you came to this house you played for us. Will you do it again?” Lanny replied, “I played the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata. I know it is a favorite of yours.” When Hitler said yes, he added, “My fingers have grown rusty of late, but I don’t think I shall forget any Beethoven that I ever knew.”
He seated himself, and there came forth those sorrowful notes, so laden with grief, yet so beautiful—oh, surely, there must be some balm for human suffering, some meaning to all the sacrifice and the failure! You could think of men giving their lives by the thousands on the sodden, rain-soaked fields of Central Russia; you could think of the hopes of mankind for beauty and peace that have never come to fruition; you could think of noble spirits who had longed to assuage human pain and had seen only greed and cruelty prevailing in the world. You could think such thoughts in the moonlight, of course, or you could think them in a room with a genius-madman who had aspired to dominate a continent and had almost succeeded—but who, because he was ignorant and deluded, had brought only ruin and misery where he had hoped to bring prosperity and joy.
Such were Lanny’s thoughts as he played the slow, mournful composition, product of one of the great souls which Germany had given to mankind. Were there other Beethovens perishing in the lonely steppes of the Ukraine tonight? Had they died in frozen Stalingrad, or in the blazing hot desert of North Africa? Were they being gathered up now by the Razzia, the raids which desperate Wehrmacht men were making every night upon the civil population? How much of German genius, of wisdom and scholarship and scientific skill, was being lost to mankind forever because the onetime inmate of a home for the destitute in Vienna had gambled on his belief that Britain and France would not dare come to the rescue of Poland, and that the New World could not arm itself in time to save the Old?
Woe, woe, and sorrow beyond all imagining, sunk forever into the abyss of time, swallowed by eternal forgetfulness! When the sad notes died away, they sat silent for a while; then Kurt, the musical authority, remarked, “Very good, Lanny”—and it was kindness, not condescension. Kurt could have done much better, but his skill was one of the casualties of war. When Hitler remarked, “How I wish that you could play for us!” Kurt replied, “I can play the treble part only.” It occurred to the host that he had a four-hand arrangement of the Führermarsch, which Kurt had written in his honor, following the precedent of Wagner’s Kaisermarsch. He said, “You might play it three-handed.” And that, of course, was a command.
Lanny got the music out, and set it up, and they played a piece which Lanny thought was wholly uninspired, unworthy of Kurt’s true self. Kurt played with his right hand, and Lanny
with his two hands more softly, and it sounded not too bad. It told Adi Schicklgruber that he must not yield to grief, that he must have the stamina and Beharrlichkeit of Frederick the Great, and then his name would be written on the scroll of history alongside that great conqueror’s. In short, it said, “Get to work again!”
The Führer took up the house telephone and asked if there were any dispatches. They were sent up; he sat reading and frowning, and then he read them aloud: the Russians were continuing their relentless pressure beyond Belgorod and the situation was serious there. After that they talked about the war, and Lanny couldn’t see that the Führer was getting any rest out of this meeting with old friends. To be sure, Eva leaned her head on his shoulder and he petted her as he talked, but it was an absent-minded sort of love-making, and Lanny wondered about it. Had this amiable, slow-minded girl been able to win Hitler away from those abnormalities which had caused so much distress to other women, and had driven his niece, Geli Raubal, to take her own life?
VI
The master of the Third Reich talked about the new divisions he was pouring into Italy, and the shock the Anglo-Americans would get if they dared attempt a landing on the toe of the Italian boot. Lanny said that he had heard talk at his father’s about the idea of landing farther up on the boot. He thought that might cause a bit of confusion in the Führer’s mind; but if it did, it didn’t show. “We shall be ready for them, wherever they come,” declared Adi. “We are getting new weapons, and I hope you won’t be around when they start to work, Herr-Budd.”