“It is a common one, Herr Budd, and not at all hard for me to imagine.”
“For example, when I was in Rome recently, Marshal Kesselring turned me over to Herr Güntelen, who, I assume, is one of your men. It was he who suggested that I would not be able to get much information unless I shaded my opinions to the Allied side. I hated to do that, because I don’t like the Badoglios and the Cianos and the other turncoats; but I met them, and I managed to hear them talk freely, and I reported on them to the Führer. Herr Güntelen promised that no matter what I did he would have no doubt of my good faith. But I cannot tell what reports may have come to you, and to old friends of mine like Heinrich Jung here.”
The Jugend official had been sitting all through this interview, not opening his mouth, and probably shivering in his boots. For who in Germany was not afraid of this modern Torquemada, this man who could send even high generals to their death, and had done so? Even now Heinrich Jung didn’t dare to speak, but waited for his superior to give the decision.
“Believe me, Herr Budd, I have not been left uninformed of the situation.” Could it be that there was a smile on the tight thin lips? “Believe me, all true friends of the Führer are friends of mine,” added the Gestapo chief. This was a careful answer and somewhat cryptic.
Following the motto of Danton, Lanny said, “If there is anything about my activities that seems to you to require explanation, I should esteem it a favor if you would let me give it to you at this time.”
“Thank you, Herr Budd. I have accepted the Führer’s faith in you because the Führer is the best judge of human nature I know. But since you make the offer, I will ask you about your relations with a man who makes such excellent airplanes for combat with our Luftwaffe.”
“A very natural question. My father is a lifelong Republican, and put up large sums of his own money in the effort to defeat Roosevelt on three different occasions. He was, as you probably know, a business associate of General Göring, and he then conceived a great admiration for German efficiency and order; he was an ardent isolationist, as the friends of Germany were called. But after Pearl Harbor the government moved in on him, and he is to all purposes their prisoner; they tell him what to do and he does it. My father is not an idealist like the Führer and yourself, Exzellenz; he is a businessman and conceives it his duty to protect the interests of his stockholders.”
“He is well paid for it, I imagine.”
“Not so much as you might think. The gross income of the company is immense; but there are corporation taxes and excess profits taxes; then, when my father gets his share, he pays about eighty-two percent of it in personal income taxes. It is that way in war, in all countries. My father hates this war and vents his feelings by giving me items of information which I pass on to the Führer.”
“Your father knows that you come into Germany?”
“I have never told him because I do not wish to put that responsibility upon him; but he is a shrewd man and I am sure that he guesses.”
“You have information for the Führer at present, Herr Budd?”
“I am bringing him some papers which he commissioned me to try to get.”
“Would you be willing for me to see them?”
Lanny had been prepared for this, but pretended to hesitate. “I will put it up to you, Exzellenz. If the Führer had instructed you to get certain information for him and him alone, and if someone else asked to see it, what would you do?”
Again there appeared the trace of a smile on the thin tight lips. “I should give them to the Führer.”
“No doubt he will show them to you if he thinks they have value.” Lanny, extremely anxious not to offend this dangerous man, went on to suggest, “If you would call him on the telephone and ask him to change his instructions—”
“Never mind, Herr Budd; the wait will not be long. I am pleased to learn that the Führer has a friend who is to be depended upon.”
Was that sarcasm or was it piety? Had the P.A. made another friend or another enemy? He had no idea which. It is the nature of despotism all over the world that no man can trust any other, or be sure of the meaning of any spoken word. The land of Beethoven, of Goethe and Schiller, had become Turkey under the Sultan Abdul Hamid, Russia under Ivan the Terrible, Spain under Torquemada, chief of the Holy Inquisition.
11
Spoils of the Enemy
I
Life changed in the New Chancellery when the Führer stepped across its portal. The Führer flag was raised over the building—a dangerous thing to do, but it was an act of defiance to the foe, a cry of hate. The sentries at the door stood more erect, the officials walked more smartly, the humblest Diener wore a smile and felt a thrill in his heart, knowing that he was part of the wonder. Such was the power of this genius-madman over the German people—all but a sophisticated few. The great indoctrinated masses loved and honored him as a projection, a perfect archetype, of themselves. Amid all the suffering and grief they believed what he told them, that they were the greatest people on earth, and had only to hold out and victory would come to their banner. Sieg heil!
Even Lanny Budd felt the stirring. For him it would mean getting out of jail—the company of Heinrich Jung, of whom he was so awfully, awfully tired. Poor Heinrich, he truly loved Lanny and thought him a superior person; by way of proving his devotion, he talked to him and asked questions about the outside world. This kept Lanny under strain all the time, for fear that he might say something good about that world, might give some hint that in some way it was better than the Nazi world.
The only escape was to read the newspapers and magazines, and they were poisonous things, full of lies and hatred. In this huge imitation barracks that the Führer had built were no books but Nazi books; the Führer was interested only in literature that was an extension of his own mind. Lanny was reduced to raiding the Karl May collection and reading one of these romances of the American Far West. They were fantastically out of drawing, but they had the feeling for adventure in strange surroundings. “Old Shatterhand,” the scout, had a rifle that could fire forty-eight times and wipe out a whole herd of buffalo. To read about him was part of a P.A.’s job, for Adi wouldn’t be able to believe anything really bad about a man who admired his youthful literary idol.
Heinrich Jung brought the news: the Führer was here; and then Professor Haushofer had come; then Franz von Papen, and Dr. Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach—evidently there was going to be a council of the elders, a very miscellaneous lot. There came Professor Pröfenik, astrologer and mystic, a white-whiskered old rascal, as Lanny knew well, having co-operated with him when trying to find out what had become of Trudi Schultz in the hands of the Gestapo. Heinrich brought one name after another, and Lanny realized that his turn was still distant. He went on reading about German immigrants on the prairie, and Winnetou, chief of the Apaches, smoking a peace pipe with them. The Nazi doctrine, taught in all the schools, was that Germans had been responsible for most of the progress in America from the earliest days. Unfortunately there were not enough of them to control the bad behavior of the Anglo-Saxons and other savage tribes!
There came Arthur Kannenberg, bubbling over with welcome; he liked Herr Budd—it was his business to like everybody, and to feed them. He brought the tidings that they were to have a little party, late at night, after all die Grössen had departed. Herr Kannenberg was going to give them a roast goose, and besought their aid in persuading the Führer to partake of it. He never ate red meat, but now and then could be tempted to taste fowl. The Führer’s abused stomach was giving him endless trouble, and his steward’s remedy was meat, in all the different forms which he knew so well how to prepare. Aber leider, it went untasted most of the time, and Dr. Morell continued to shoot glucose and caffeine into the unhappy great man’s veins. Herr Kannenberg’s whispered opinion of Dr. Morell’s medical treatments amounted to Majestätsbeleidigung.
It was a whole series of indiscretions, but he thought of Lanny as an old friend, and one who could
surely be trusted. “Der arme Mensch!” exclaimed the steward. “No one can ever get him to go outdoors. He paces the room; he frets and worries, day and night. He is sick of the very sight of generals; he distrusts them all, and yet he has to trust some of them! Three times last winter he went to Berchtesgaden, but he could not stay, because of the snow.”
“Snow?” exclaimed the visitor. “Surely they could keep the road clear!”
“He could not stand the sight of it, Herr Budd. It made him think of Stalingrad, and our poor fellows freezing and suffering. Those dreadful Russian winters! Never must anyone speak of snow in his presence!”
II
It was about ten in the evening when Lanny Budd was summoned to the presence. He was searched, but not so thoroughly as last time; perhaps it was that Heinrich Jung was present, as a sort of guarantee of respectability. When the young SS men came to Lanny’s undershirt he told them, “This package contains papers which are for the Führer’s eyes alone. You are at liberty to leaf through the papers, but always with the typewritten side turned down. If you fail to do this, it will be my unpleasant duty to report the fact to the Führer.” That was the way to talk to Nazis, and under Herr Budd’s watchful eyes they handled that package as if it had contained poisonous snakes.
The conference took place in the Führer’s private apartment. The onetime inmate of a shelter for the homeless did himself well as regards furniture and decorations, but his taste was decidedly bourgeois; he liked big overstuffed chairs, heavy curtains, and a collection of knick-knacks which to an American suggested the days of his grandfather. The Führer looked wan and exhausted, but showed eagerness to welcome this visitor who brought promise of excitement.
Sunk up to his neck in upholstery, Lanny told a wonderful story, which he had been reciting for weeks, about the efforts he had made to get real information this time, and how he had come upon the trail of a secretary who had been in Robbie Budd’s service for many years and shared Robbie’s abhorrence for this fratricidal war; this man was now in Washington and his son was employed in the White House office. A couple of thousand dollars had done the trick, and Lanny now had the latest authentic figures as to American military production; also, he had reports fresh from the hands of the authorities, showing the widespread efforts of wealthy and powerful persons to get America out of the war.
Hitler’s hands trembled with eagerness as he reached out for these papers. They were in English, and anyway he couldn’t have read them being unwilling to put on his spectacles in the presence of a foreigner. But he pretended to look them over, and then asked Lanny to summarize them. When the procedure was finished he exclaimed in amazement, “How is it possible, Herr Budd, that the government does not move against such conspirators?”
Lanny had the answer to that one carefully thought out. In a decadent democracy the government was afraid of public opinion, and the scandal that would result from the exposure of a spirit of revolt so widespread among the most influential persons. The government did not dare to defend its own existence; it temporized and argued with its foes, tried to frighten them, and was itself frightened by their bold resistance. No one who listened to Lanny’s detailed story could escape the conclusion that the Judeo-pluto-democracy overseas was on the verge of a revolution replacing its Jewish-descended Rosenfeld with a regime that would turn American arms against Asiatic Bolshevism and in support of Aryan order and property rights.
Lanny talked at length about his researches among the great capitalists of his country. He didn’t have to be restrained by fear of libel suits from telling Hitler that America’s leading newspaper proprietors, Mr. Hearst and Colonel McCormick, Cissy Patterson and Frank Gannett, were loyal friends of Nazi-Fascism, operating under democratic disguise. Their tens of millions of readers were by now thoroughly indoctrinated, and the mothers of America wanted nothing but to get their sons out of this world holocaust.
Lanny revealed also the terror which prevailed among government circles in Britain, which had learned about the jet bombs now coming into mass production. Lanny told some of the things they knew, and the Führer rubbed his hands together, a characteristic gesture when he was pleased. “Tell them the worst!” he said. “Tell them that our Vergeltungswaffe Zwei will carry more than a ton and a half of explosive, and in full production will cost only a tenth as much as a bombing plane. Tell them it won’t be long before we build them so that they will release their cargo and then turn and fly back to their base; they will fly so fast that the British will not hear them until after they are gone.”
Lanny promised faithfully that he would tell all this.
III
For a full hour the P.A. answered questions of his Führer: what he had seen in America, the attitude of the different classes, the delays in production, the rationing and the black markets, the possibilities of a coup d’état. Lanny’s answers were such as to bring comfort to an harassed soul, and put him in a mood to yield to the temptation of roast goose. He sent for Heinrich Jung, and also for his dear “Evi”—so he called her. This was an honor for both Heinrich and Lanny, for the very existence of this Bavarian damsel was known only to a few intimate friends. The women of Germany had never heard of her; to them the Führer had to be a celibate and saint, whom each in her secret heart imagined as her special, heaven-sent Lohengrin.
Herr Kannenberg came, bursting with cordiality, and singing the praises of the feast he had prepared. The odor of the hot goose assailed the nostrils of all four of the party. Impossible to resist it, and Adi consented to have one small slice of breast; a large slice was put on his plate, together with a pile of stuffing. They talked about the food, and other feasts they had enjoyed in the old days; Lanny, who had partaken of Weihnachts cheer at the home of the Meissners thirty years ago, told how he and Heinrich and Kurt had shot hares in the snow and Lanny had learned about real German Hasenpfeffer and the kind of bun called Dresdner Christ-stollen. Anything to keep the Führer’s mind away from the terrible thought of German armies being crushed, and German blood poured out, on the dust-blown Russian steppes!
After the meal was eaten and Adi had sunk into a soft sofa with one arm about his Schatz, Herr Kannenberg asked if he might sing for them, and the offer was accepted. The little round fellow seated himself on a small stool, overflowing the sides of it, his ivory-inlaid accordion clutched over his belly. He began to play, keeping time with one foot and turning his enraptured eyes to the ceiling. He played the Bavarian G’stanzln which Adi had learned to love in childhood, and which called for no intellectual effort disturbing to digestion. “Hab’ oft die ganze Nacht bei ihrer Hütten gewacht,” wailed the minstrel.
But just when everybody had got into the proper sad mood for a story of unrequited love, there burst upon their ears a rude, screaming sound, the air-raid siren. For a few moments the singer tried to keep on, in an effort to maintain morale, but his Führer rose, so he had to quit. There was danger in delay, for the British had fast bombers called Mosquitoes, and these delighted to make sneak raids, flying close to the ground to avoid the German radar. Thus the bombs often fell a few seconds after the warnings were heard, and this kept everybody anxious—which was what the malicious foe desired.
Walking as fast as dignity permitted, Hitler led the way to the Führerbunker, a private apartment underground. It was the first time the American visitor had seen it, and he was astonished by its elaborateness. The entrance was through an almost solid block of concrete, the size of a small cottage, standing in the Chancellery garden. You went down thirty-five or forty steps and found yourself in a central hall which contained a long table, upholstered chairs, paintings on the walls—everything as aboveground, though on a smaller scale. On one side was a drawing-room, Hitler’s bedroom, and his office; also Eva’s bedroom and a bathroom; on the other side was Dr. Morell’s office, an operating-room and a hospital room with several beds; a telephone room for three operators and a telegraph room for four; file rooms, a storeroom, a lavatory, and an elaborate engine roo
m providing light and air conditioning.
They sat in the drawing-room, with the customary long, overstuffed sofa, the cuckoo clock, and the bric-a-brac—all according to the taste of a customs official named Schicklgruber from the Innviertel in Austria. This Führerbunker must have cost a million marks at the least, but it would not be complete without gimcracks which had cost several marks each. It might be, of course, that these were Eva’s contribution. She had been a photographer’s assistant in Munich, and had studied to be a dancer, so she considered herself an artiste, and possibly had appealed to Hitler on that basis.
Anyhow, here they were, safe and sound in the most elaborate rabbit warren or gopher burrow ever constructed. Bombs began to fall on the city above, and the ground shook under their feet, but there was nothing to fear. Lanny tried to make conversation, but gave it up because he saw that it wasn’t considered the proper thing. The Führer couldn’t sit still; he jumped up and paced the floor, snapping his fingers and muttering to himself. All the millions that had been spent to give him physical security couldn’t give him mental or moral peace. This was an outrage, a crime, because it was destroying German property and German lives; worse than that, it was an insult, because it was coming to the Reichshauptstadt, it was bearding the dragon in his own den; it was doing what he and his Nummer Zwei, the Luftwaffe commander, had said could never be done by any foe. It was the behavior of barbarians, an affront to civilization, and as it went on, bomb after bomb, the Führer worked himself into one of his tantrums, racing up and down in his drawing-room, in front of the guests lined up on the long sofa against one wall. Lanny could only sit and keep his eyes averted, finding comfort in the thought that these were British planes, which did night bombing, and not American planes, which came by day.