(2.X.44.) ‘How will the Minister react to the plan?’ – that was the big question that was exercising us all. ‘How do we tell the children?’ – that was the hardest part. In my view it was all very easy: you gave the Minister my novel to read, and since he was clearly not stupid he would see immediately that the book really did chronicle the fortunes of a German man from 1900 to 1928, and more to the point, that it offered a splendid role for Emil Jannings. But the old film hands just shook their heads at such naive suggestions, saying that the Minister should not read this novel, because it contained far too many things that a Nazi government minister should not know. And there were lots of things missing – as I was soon to discover. So the film bosses spent a lot of money, a lot more money than they had already paid me, and got a whole series of writers on the job, writers whom Emil Jannings dismissed as ‘Nazi hacks’, in other words established screenwriters favoured by the Party. These gentlemen fell upon my novel, excerpted, condensed and abstracted it for all they were worth, twisted the plot, cut out some figures and invented new ones, skewed characters so that a villain suddenly became a noble-hearted hero, while a virtuous girl now committed some act of infamy – and justified all these abominations with the ‘requirements of film’, which apparently obeys different laws from those that govern the theatre, the novel, life in general – and indeed the entire universe. As all these people beavered away, it soon became clear that I had once again delivered too much ‘product’ for the money they paid me: they could have made five or even ten films out of the material I had supplied. Deciding what to use became a real problem. In the end they agreed to make a two-part film on an epic scale, which would be shown over two evenings. To sugar the pill for the Minister they designated this beast a ‘classic German film’, and manfully suppressed – in my presence at least – any impulse to address the question of just what the Minister would say to a ‘classic German film’ involving the undesirable author Fallada.127 In the end they commissioned a well-known German woman writer128 with a lot of film experience to work up the draft prepared by the Nazi hacks and give the thing a bit of artistic polish. This woman – Jannings called her ‘the old film tart’, as he called all women working in the film industry ‘old film tarts’ – actually managed to pull it off, restoring some life and lustre to the poor butterfly that had long since had all the bloom rubbed off its wings by repeated handling: the screenplay that was sent to the Minister now had a number of decent scenes and one very fine one.
I’ve told the story at some length in order to give the reader some idea of how, under the National Socialist regime, every artistic activity was inhibited and rendered almost impossible by the need to defer to the tastes and prejudices of senior government figures. The issue was never: how do I make a good film? The issue was not even: how do I make a film that will please the public? Instead it was all about the one issue: how do I make this film project palatable to my Minister? Every artistic consideration and every question of taste took second place to this one overriding issue.
Thank heavens, I was not directly involved in any of this, and my feeble protests were met with a patient smile, like the objections of a child who knows nothing of the world. But like everyone else I couldn’t wait to find out what Dr Goebbels would say to the draft screenplay. The script was returned, and I can testify under oath to the fact that Goebbels had really read it. On every page we were taken to task for something we had all forgotten, I more than anyone, and on every page one word had been heavily scrawled in pencil, followed by one, two or three exclamation marks and sometimes by a question mark as well: ‘Jews!!!?’
Yes indeed: we had all forgotten, of course, that the Jews were to blame for everything bad that had happened in Germany since there were Germans on the planet, and that no classic German film could possibly be complete unless they were given major leading roles. But strangely enough this ministerial criticism never assumed any practical relevance – yet another of the wonderful mysteries of film: the screenplay had apparently been approved in its present form, despite the missing Jews. The Jews were merely a ministerial flourish, a poor mark handed out to inattentive schoolboys. Better yet: the film project had secured the Minister’s glowing approval, including the plan to show the film over two evenings, and as the production costs were going to be very high, the Minister had even deigned to make one and a half million Reichsmarks available for the film from a special fund. Everyone was cheering for joy, everyone heaved a huge sigh of relief, everyone threw himself into the practical work that could now begin; the only one who was weeping was the author. Jannings and the director Froelich took him to one side and passed on a special message from the Minister for the author, Hans Fallada, stating that it was of course absurd to have the film end with the trip to Paris! There was – of course – only one possible way for the film to end, and that was with the seizure of power by the National Socialists! So the stories of the individual characters would have to be continued up until the seizure of power, especially in the case of old Hackendahl, ‘Iron Gustav’, who had to be shown developing into an ardent Nazi in the years between the trip to Paris and the seizure of power.
I listened to these comments in dumbfounded silence. I had no idea this was coming. Had I foreseen such a thing, I would never have accepted the commission. I had set out to create a character for the actor Emil Jannings to play; helping the Party’s propaganda effort was emphatically not part of the plan!
But this is not what I said to my two listeners. I reminded them how unpopular the author Fallada was with the Party, how he had almost been banned completely once before as a result of Jailbird.129 To continue the story in the way the Minister was proposing, I would inevitably have to introduce characters who were Party members, show SA men fighting in the streets, depict the workings of Party organizations and incorporate debates between Communists and Nazis. Now if an undesirable author such as Fallada were to write this story, describing Party figures and extolling their struggles, that would unleash a storm of protest from the entire Party that would not only sweep me away, but also kill off the entire film project. I reminded Jannings of the hordes of ‘Nazi hacks’ waiting in the wings, who were far better qualified than I to write such a story, and who undoubtedly had a lot more personal experience than I did as veterans of many a roughhouse and many a Party meeting. Both Jannings and the director Froelich could see the sense of what I was saying, and Jannings promised to try and get an early meeting with the Minister. He mentioned that Dr Goebbels had expressed a wish to make my personal acquaintance, and asked me if I wouldn’t like to come along to the meeting and put my objections in person. I declined with a shudder. I could cope with living under a shadow and being an undesirable author; but to fly so close to the sun of Dr Goebbels’ favour seemed to me to be inviting the fate of Icarus.
The answer that Emil Jannings brought back to Fallada, the Minister’s answer to his objections, was short and to the point, leaving no room for misunderstanding: if Fallada still doesn’t know where he stands on the Party, then the Party knows where it stands on Fallada!
I’m not given to grand gestures before the thrones of tyrants, and it’s not my style to get myself killed for no reason, when it doesn’t help anyone and merely harms my children. So after three minutes’ reflection I agreed to do the additional work. How I squared this with my conscience in private, that’s another story. The month I spent writing this Nazi sequel is outlined in black ink on my calendar, I hated every minute of it – and I hated myself even more.
But the day came when I was finished, and I delivered the manuscript. I had fully expected that this dog’s breakfast would be greeted with some indignation, but instead it was greeted with a tentative squawk of satisfaction, tentative because first of all the Minister had to squawk. The Minister duly squawked, the Minister gave the go-ahead, the Minister finally allocated the one and a half million. Work on the film began, the first sketches were made, studio space was rented, actors were hired, and 800,
000 marks had already been blown – when events took a new turn: Minister Rosenberg had declared130 that a classic German film with the name Fallada on the billing was not acceptable. Fallada should be regarded as a ‘cultural Bolshevist’, and was therefore a prime candidate for eradication!
And then it all vanished in a puff of smoke, like a conjuring trick. The preparations for filming were halted, the actors disappeared, the scripts were buried at the bottom of the dustiest drawers. Once again director Froelich’s future was in question, and once again he survived: now he had to quickly prepare the Virchow film for Emil Jannings, so that the actor would have a new role waiting for him. Three days after the celebrated Rosenberg diktat nobody in the film studios, in the entire city of Berlin, knew that a film called ‘Iron Gustav’ had ever been planned, nobody had ever worked on a film project of that name, nobody knew the first thing about it! Except of course for one man, who could not hide behind feigned ignorance: and that was the author Fallada. His novel Iron Gustav had already appeared in the bookshops, so the unfortunate author’s name was already out there. Up until then the book had sold quite nicely and without the slightest murmur of objection, and Fallada’s readers had even swallowed the Nazi sequel without protest – which further eroded my belief in the good judgement of my readers. But now all hell broke loose. Everything I had predicted now happened: I was reviled because I had dared to portray Party figures, I was excommunicated, ostracized and outlawed. Just as they had after the publication of Jailbird, the SA and SS now took to the streets and forced booksellers to remove my books from their window displays, and indeed from their shelves; from now on Fallada was only sold under the counter by courageous booksellers to customers who had specially requested a copy. I was looking at the end of my writing career.
But what about the gentlemen who had commissioned me to write this stuff, who had showered my work with the highest praise in telegrams, letters and personal exchanges – how did they react? Where were Mr Froelich, the set directors, the gentlemen from the script department and the Nazi hacks involved in the rewrites? There was not a peep from any of them, nobody put their hand up, and in a way I can’t really blame them. Kicking up a fuss would not have helped me, and would only have got them into trouble.
The only exception was Emil Jannings himself, who wrote me a letter and asked me to come and see him so that he could explain everything. But at the time I was too ‘stupid’, I was sick of the whole business and didn’t want to hear another word. So I didn’t go and see Jannings, I didn’t get to hear the explanation, the facts as I was seeing them and living them on a daily basis were quite enough for me. I have not seen Emil Jannings again since.
But while I could understand why everyone kept quiet, and never reproached them for distancing themselves from our joint endeavour, the entire burden of which they now left me to shoulder, there was one man who should have spoken up for me, the man who had known about and approved this project, who had backed it with a grant of one and a half million, and who in the face of all the author’s legitimate objections had forced him to write the Nazi ending with the threatening words: ‘If Fallada still doesn’t know where he stands on the Party, then the Party knows where it stands on Fallada!’ I refer to Minister Goebbels. Minister Goebbels was a powerful man, he didn’t need to grovel, he didn’t need to fear for his own and his family’s safety, he could have come out openly in support of his plans, he could have fought his corner with his colleague Rosenberg; he could have taken his cue from something his Party comrade Göring had said, and boldly declared: ‘I decide who is a cultural Bolshevist!’ But Minister Goebbels did none of this. He kept quiet just like everybody else, suddenly he too didn’t know a thing about it. But why was that? He really didn’t need to, surely? Well, yes, he did. Once again he could not afford to play the strong man, he was in no position to fight, this loyal henchman of the Führer, because now he was tainted, because yet another of his dirty deeds stank to high heaven. He could not fight back against his colleague Rosenberg, although he was actually the stronger man, because at this moment he was in a weak position – not least with his beloved Führer. Minister Goebbels, who is a great admirer of other men’s wives, had been talking a little too loudly and a little too often about how such and such an actress has the loveliest navel in the world, and something had happened that was completely unheard of in the Nazi Reich: an actor who was not even a Party member, who regarded himself as engaged to the actress in question, had slapped the Minister’s face.131 And the Minister had to make the best of it, while the whole of Berlin, indeed the whole of Germany, had a good laugh at his expense. One person who was not laughing was the Minister’s wife, who had already had to put up with a great deal, and there’s always one last straw that breaks the camel’s back: so she had wanted a divorce and was planning to go and live in Switzerland with the children. But of course that had not been allowed; government ministers can get up to all the dirty tricks they like, but the public interest bars their wives from taking appropriate action in response. The Führer himself intervened: the wife had to stay with her husband (and continue to bear him children in a model German marriage), but the husband was sidelined for a while. At that point Minister Goebbels could no longer afford to fight for his own plans and challenge his colleagues, which is why the author Fallada had to carry the can alone – and was nearly finished as a result.
Oh, he’s a dangerous man, this Dr Goebbels, and maybe more dangerous to his friends than he is to his enemies. Take the case of the actor Mathias Wieman,132 which I witnessed at first hand. Mathias Wieman was a friend of Dr Goebbels, and something of a pampered favourite. The two of us, me and this tall, almost scraggy figure, a native of Westphalia, a strong man, and a ‘biter and kicker’, as he likes to describe himself, who is most at home playing slightly sickly, morbid male characters, had been brought together by Wolf among Wolves. Following a long period of complete despondency and creative drought, I had written this long novel in one go; the passion for writing, the rush I get from creating characters and developing them, seem to be indestructible in me. One evening we heard a voice on the radio, it was the voice of Mathias Wieman, reviewing Wolf among Wolves. He did a wonderful job, speaking about my book in that beautiful, measured voice of his, which is made for speaking the verse of Goethe or Hölderlin. He didn’t review my book so much as describe a profound personal experience: here was a man talking about something that had moved him deeply.
I too was touched and deeply moved, but perhaps less by what he said than by the fact that here, for the first time since 1933, someone was publicly speaking out for the writer Fallada. Since 1932 the name Fallada had never been mentioned on the radio, here too I had been proscribed and banned. And now Wieman was speaking on a personal note, like an old friend . . . I admired the courage he showed in breaking through the ring of silence that surrounded me. It nearly cost him and me dear. Minister Rosenberg, the same man who had called me a cultural Bolshevist and blocked the production of my film, naturally heard about Wieman’s public endorsement of Fallada, and felt it was high time these two gentlemen were consigned to the place where they belonged, namely the void. And a suitable opportunity for putting them in their place now presented itself: Rosenberg had to give a speech at the University of Halle,133 and as he planned to talk about German culture, he could also use the occasion to talk about the enemies of German culture, in other words the Bolsheviks – including Wieman and Fallada. Such was the plan, and so it would have come to pass, meaning that for the last six years or so I would have written no more books, and Wieman would have done no more acting, had it not been for the fact that Mr Rosenberg’s plans encountered a little obstacle – and one, moreover, put in their way by his own people. In the world at large people know, or perhaps they don’t, that Reichsleiter Rosenberg edits the Völkischer Beobachter, the official Party organ, which he favours from time to time with leading articles that are as abstruse and high-flown as his Myth of the Twentieth Century.134 And just
as Mr Rosenberg was preparing to deal a crushing blow to me and my Wolf, as well as the actor Mathias Wieman, events took an unfortunate turn when the Reichsleiter’s own newspaper printed a glowing review of the selfsame Wolf – and this on the very eve of his speech in Halle! So what was Reichsleiter Rosenberg to do? He could fire this rogue journalist on the spot, and this he duly did. But he could not discredit himself: he had to stand by what was written in his own newspaper, or at the very least he had to keep his mouth shut, if he did not wish to become a general laughing-stock. So he kept quiet. I was saved once again – but by such gossamer threads does the fate of an author hang in the Third Reich!
Mathias Wieman was less fortunate. Minister Goebbels developed an affection for this big, strong actor, and made him his friend. He had a strange way of relating to his friends, the Minister, he treated them like lovers. He would ring up in the morning and inquire eagerly how his dear friend had slept, later on he would send flowers and chocolates. Wieman had to visit him daily, and they would have a drink and talk about everything under the sun, and always they were of one mind. Until the day came when they were not of one mind; they fell out over something or other of no great importance in itself. But a Minister is a Minister, which is to say, someone very high up, while an actor is a much lesser personage, who cannot ever win an argument with a Minister. But Mathias Wieman couldn’t see this. Whereupon the Minister turned very frosty, sending his friend away under a cloud, and there were no more telephone calls, no more flowers or chocolates.