“Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht” hummed Ernst. The short summer night was passing, the night when nowadays all good Germans could sleep in safety under the spread of their Führer’s unsleeping, protecting wings. He yawned. Protected from Marxists, and Jews.... And the French.... “From ghosties and ghoulies” (as we would say), “and everything else which goes bump in the night.”
He rocked on his feet; and almost before he fell on his bed he had fallen asleep.
25
Ernst had been right: Hitler was bound for Munich, to keep his appointment with Röhm—though a little ahead of time.
Three weeks ago, when Röhm’s neuritis became so acute that he had to take sick-leave, the S.A. Chief had rented some downstairs rooms in a quiet and unpretentious mountain inn on the shores of the Tegernsee. Not in a lonely place, for Wiessee’s sulphur and iodine springs were famous for cures: the village consisted almost entirely of clinics and sanatoria. Here, in the Pension Hanslbaur, Röhm had transported himself just about as far as he could from that feverish city of rumor and intrigue, Berlin, while remaining in easy reach of Munich for secret talks with Göbbels. Apart from Count Spreti, his permanent boy-friend, he only took with him a couple of adjutants, leaving his staff-guards in Munich.
Röhm’s doctor had ordered a sedative course of injections, and drove out from Munich each time one was needed to give it himself. Tonight the final injection was due; and the doctor had got to the inn just in time for dinner, so he and his patient had quietly dined together first (a Gruppenführer called Bergmann making a third). After dinner the three of them sat round playing cards till eleven o’clock, when the doctor suggested his patient was better in bed if he hoped to be fighting-fit for tomorrow’s meeting. Röhm nodded, and rose to go. He hadn’t abandoned the policy struggle, and (as his doctor knew) tomorrow’s meeting was crucial: the Adolf who never seemed able to make up his mind alone had got to be helped. Tomorrow he had to be faced by the whole S.A. Top Brass presenting their case in unison: either these two million S.A. men must be-come a recognized Army Reserve (in other words, be allowed to engulf the tiny Professional Army and open the way for a leftward swing in policy), or.... Or if Hitler wouldn’t agree, Röhm said he had made up his mind to resign and return to Bolivia, leaving Our Adolph to cope with those turbulent fellows himself. He would soon find out these men had none of those ancient and deeply-ingrained emotional ties to his person which handicapped Röhm; and indeed he (Röhm) was heartily sick of keeping a couple of million men on the leash whose claims he believed in, simply to make things smoother for Adolf!
Tomorrow Adolf would certainly turn on all his charm; and the thought gave Röhm a sinking feeling.... But this time his mind was made up to resist. After all he’d resigned once before, and if need be could do it again: South America had its charms....
So Röhm retired to his ground-floor room and obediently went to bed. The doctor pricked him, and left him to sleep it off.
The doctor was just on the point of returning to Munich when Bergmann suggested it being so late why not stop the night? Some unexpected tourists had come from Berlin, so the inn was full; but the room the two adjutants shared upstairs had a third bed in it the doctor was welcome to doss down on.... He accepted; and then—since neither man wanted to turn in yet—the pair of them sat around chewing the rag in the lounge.
At half-past-twelve the first invitee for tomorrow’s meeting arrived. This was the S.A. High-up from Breslau: a man who still looked the part of one of Rossbach’s gallant toughs of old Freikorps times—which is just what he was, with his whipcord muscles and winning girlish face and girlish behavior and (girlish) murderous record. This Edmund Heines wanted to talk to his sleeping chief at once; but the doctor was firm, the drug must be left to work undisturbed. So Heines grumbled a bit, then swallowed a yawn and wandered along the passage to room No. 9. He would see the Chief in the morning....
When the doctor finally went to bed himself it was gone one o’clock, and both the young adjutants sound asleep.
26
During the two-hour flight Hans’s fortunate brother—the granite-faced Friedrich—had snatched what sleep he could in the air as the only rest he was likely to get; and the early midsummer dawn was already tinting the spires of Munich with rosy light as their plane touched down.
The Führer himself had put through a call before leaving Godesberg. This, Friedrich knew, was to trigger certain provisional orders to Gauleiter Wagner in Munich—whatever those orders might be; and now he was soon to find out what they were, for instead of heading for Wiessee at once the cars drove first to Wagner’s Ministry. Friedrich indeed had a fair idea; but he got it confirmed as the party climbed the ill-lit, deserted and echoing stairs on their way to the Minister’s private room: for there on the stairs he caught sight of somebody staggering blindly from wall to Wall who screamed with fear at the sound of approaching feet.
Then this apparition—his head all covered in blood and his face bashed in—turned and upbraided the Führer. Faithful old S.A. comrades invited by Wagner had all sat drinking together till dawn (it appeared from his ravings), expecting the Führer’s arrival: then Wagner himself had given a sign whereon half the party had set on their neighbors with bottles and pistol-butts. It was senseless cold-blooded murder, this slaughter of faithful S.A. Old Comrades: if this had indeed been done on the Führer’s orders the Führer was mad....
Friedrich had drawn his gun; but Göbbels laid a restraining hand on his arm, for the Führer was stammering out excuses! He seemed completely taken aback by this Banquo’s Ghost, and assured him there’d been some ghastly mistake—that he wouldn’t have anyone hurting one hair of dear Banquo’s head: “You’d better go straight to the doctor.”
There’d been some ghastly mistake indeed, thought Friedrich—so simple a killing bungled to start with! The superstitious Führer must think it an omen.... Then Friedrich felt the hand on his forearm tremble, and glanced at a Göbbels whose face was a mottled gray: “Aha!” thought Friedrich, “You’ve guessed like me, that the Führer may still change sides and disown the whole operation—and then where will you be, my friend?”
But now from the top of the stairs came a happy babel of slurred Bavarian voices: a group of “Old Guard” all looking as pleased as Punch, like terriers after a rat-hunt. The Führer perked up at once when he saw them, and went round slapping their backs.
“We’re sorry one bastard escaped, Herr Hitler—but still, we’ll soon pick him up!”
“Don’t worry about him, boys! I need you for bigger game.”
Dug-outs, most of them were, from Hitler’s own street-corner past.... Friedrich already had recognized Esser the scandalous, scandal-mongering journalist: Emil Maurice, the man who had trained for him all his earliest strong-arm squads before the S.A. (as such) existed; and Weber, the “Party Hercules”—nowadays run to Gargantuan fat. Weber had served as chucker-out in a pub before leading his “Oberlanders” in Hitler’s abortive Munich Putsch of eleven years back.... “You’ve shown you’re a strong man still under all this lard!” said the Führer, jovially jolting him in the ribs till the man-mountain burped. “And you too, Esser: all those mistresses haven’t drained you entirely of spunk!”
Then they all passed into Wagner’s room, while Friedrich was left outside in the passage on guard and the door was firmly closed. Friedrich couldn’t hear much through three inches of wood, except for the muffled voice of a frenzied Führer cursing somebody’s dastardly treason (so some of the party in there must still be alive, whatever Banquo supposed). Then the door was flung open again and there was Göbbels, whinnying over his shoulder: “Remember that’s just the hors-d’oeuvre—and we’d better get cracking before the news of it gets to the Chief of Staff!”
Inside the half-open door an unseen Führer was counting out loud, and murmuring names: “Du Moulin ... Schneidhuber ... Schmidt....” (who had just arrived). But at Göbbels’s words he seemed to wake with a start, and came hurrying out. As he pa
ssed through the door, “I wonder how Adolf is feeling about it now?” Friedrich asked himself: “He looks like peeing his breeks....”
But then the two adjutants had to sweep up the killer-team with them, and all pile back in the bullet-proof cars.
27
At Wiessee, at half-past-six, the doctor was roused by a terrible rumpus and hullabaloo downstairs, with a shouting and hammering fit to wake the dead. He found both adjutants gone, and one of those Berlin “tourists” each side of his pillow: the pair were plain-clothes Gestapo men from Berlin of course, and they put him under arrest.
Even before Hitler’s party had got there Dietrich’s men had arrived in Army Transport, together with some of the staff from the Concentration Camp at Dachau. Together their forces surrounded the inn. As soon as Hitler appeared, a “tourist” had crept downstairs and quietly slipped back the bolts: then Friedrich dragged Count Spreti out of his bed in Room No. 5—the whole room smelling of sweaty pajamas and hair-oil—while Brückner and Emil Maurice burst into room No. 9, where Heines was sharing his bed with his chauffeur. Though Heines was famously quick on the draw his callers were quicker, and clubbed him over the head; but the hammering heard was Hitler himself. He was using the butt of his fetish—his old rhinoceros-whip—to beat on the locked door of Room No. 7.
“Who’s there?” asked a slurred sleepy voice.
“Me, Hitler! Open the door!”
“You’re early. I didn’t expect you till noon.”
When the door opened, Hitler began to upbraid the swaying pajamaed figure still heavy with poppied sleep. But Röhm made an effort to clear the clouds from his brain, and Hitler’s incredible accusations of treachery got through at last. So he started answering back.
“Bind him!” said Hitler.
Roused by the shindy, the landlord appeared in his nightshirt wondering who’d let these rackety strangers in. Then he caught sight of Röhm his illustrious guest, and “Heil Hitlered” with lifted arm; but his guest made no move to salute him back—which of course he couldn’t, in handcuffs. “Na, ja—Grüss Gott!” said Röhm bitterly. Friedrich then escorted Röhm outside and bundled him into a car, while Hitler took hold of the trembling publican by the arm and apologized for the disturbance....
“So far, so good!” thought Friedrich, who saw how the Führer almost danced with relief.
As for the doctor’s protestations that all the effects of his treatment were being undone.... This wasn’t England, where even an ailing murderer couldn’t be hanged if the doctors considered it bad for his health; and somebody soon shut him up.
To avoid any possible ambuscade the hunting-pack rounded the lake, rejoining the Munich road by a different route. There, as they sped back again towards Munich the number of prisoners snowballed. Röhm’s orders (issued in Hitler’s name) had summoned the S.A. leaders for ten o’clock; but Heines was not the only high-ranking leader who hoped for an early word with the Chief before the meeting began. They were stopped in their cars one by one, and the men drawn up by the road in a single line for Hitler to take this strange parade of his ancient comrades-in-arms—the World War heroes, the Freikorps fighters, the men who had marched in his Munich Putsch.
One was a certain Ludin, a former Army Lieutenant cashiered and jailed four years ago for preaching the Nazi creed in the Officers’ Mess. Unlike his fellow-accused he had borne no grudge against a Führer who’d stood in the witness-box and there (for Reasons of State) had disowned him, but stuck to his Nazi guns: since when he had risen fast and far in the Storm Troops. Ludin had hoped for so much from this Wiessee meeting: so often before the Führer’s presence had served to resolve some seemingly insurmountable impasse.... But what had gone wrong? They hadn’t expected the Führer himself to arrive till noon—and now, how seedy he looked! His face was puffed, yet haggard: he hadn’t shaved, his eyes were bloodshot and dull, he was wearing a leather coat in the heat of the morning sun and he hadn’t a hat. His forelock was plastered against his forehead with sweat, and beads of it shone on his little mustache....
Meanwhile the Führer was passing in silence from man to man, pausing to give each face a look which seemed to use each pair of eyes as open peep-holes into the brain behind; and each man suddenly grew afraid. He spoke only once, when “Ludin” he said in a far-away voice before moving on. Whereupon Brückner gestured bewildered Ludin back to his car, and Ludin was free to drive away wherever he liked.... But the rest were swept into the bag; and they presently found themselves standing in ranks in the dust of Stadelheim prison yard, for most of the vacant cells had already been filled with the battered remains of Wagner’s midnight drinking-party. But Röhm had privileged treatment: for him a cell inside the jail had been held in reserve.
Röhm was no stranger to Stadelheim jail: it was where he’d been lodged long ago when the Munich Putsch failed. These were familiar walls that recalled the past and those “ancient emotional ties” which bound him to Hitler’s person, their friendship through thick and thin. Only a few months ago “Your Adolf” had sent him a letter expressing his thanks to Fate “for giving me men such as you, my dear Ernst Röhm, as my friends....” And indeed, since 1919 when he’d spotted the latent political gifts in this scrubby lance-corporal lately discharged from the Army, and given the man his chance....
But a loaded revolver was laid on the table. “A German Officer knows what he has to do,” said the jailer; and locked Röhm in.
*
Wearing “S.A. Standartenführer” badges of rank at Kettner’s behest, Lothar had traveled from Kammstadt to Munich by train. All incoming trains were met by parties of S.S. men to escort any S.A. leaders aboard them to waiting cars; but these were all of them “Gruppenführer” at least (more or less, “Generals”). Lothar, because of his lowlier rank, seemed likely to get left out....
“Excuse me,” he said.
“Who are you?” The S.S. Officer looked at him rather strangely, he thought.
“Gruppenführer Kettner.... That is, he’s broken his leg and he sent me to represent him.”
“So you’re bound for Wiessee too? All right—jump in if you like!” said the man, with a Cheshire-cat grin. So Lothar jumped in. But it wasn’t Wiessee their drivers took them to—only Stadelheim Prison. There the astounded men found themselves under arrest. They were drawn up in ranks with those others; and waited, strictly forbidden to speak.
A sudden stentorian shout rang out from inside the prison: “What’s that bloody thing for? No, I won’t do Adolf the kindness: he’ll have to do his own dirty work if he wants me dead!”
The ghost of a groan swept the men outside in the yard like a small puff of wind. After that, once more silence. They stood there and waited, surrounded by hundreds of armed S.S. men. For Hitler had gone to the Brown House; and nothing more could be done till Hitler himself arrived.
28
The Brown House was cordoned off by Police and Regular Soldiers. Rudolf Hess had flown direct from Berlin and had taken charge: any S.A. man who liked might enter, but after five in the morning none might go out.
Hitler had urgent instructions for Hess: for a flash of inspiration had shown the elated Führer that Röhm and his S.A. leaders need not be the end of this happy event by a long chalk! A lot of old scores remained to be settled, and this was an opportunity not to be missed: liquidations discreetly carried out now would hardly be noticed in all the excitement....
Gustav von Kahr for example, who’d dared to out-double-cross Hitler himself back in 1923, thus postponing his rise to power for many a weary year.... Kahr was now in his seventies, living in strict retirement; but Kahr couldn’t dodge his eventual punishment—not if he lived to be ninety! So Hess took out his notebook, and noted down “Kahr.”
There were others who had to be silenced simply for knowing too much: such as Father Stempfle (he knew far too much about Hitler’s affair with Geli). So Hess noted down “Stempfle”—without in the least knowing why. There were others as well, including a certain Bavarian
Colonel from back in Hitler’s own Army days who knew.... Hess also remembered that Colonel, and wrote down his name (Hess too had served with Liszts).
“Oh, and then there is Schmidt.”
Hess wrote down “Schmidt.” But still, which “Schmidt”? He didn’t quite like to ask.... But then he remembered how strongly the Führer felt about music: he must mean Willi Schmidt, the musical critic.
Once Hess had written in “Willi” that seemed to be all, down here in the South—unless Rudi had names of his own to add? But Hess shook his head, replaced the elastic with care and thrust the notebook back in his pocket. Had Göbbels got names to add? But Göbbels too shook his head: those Bratwurst-Glöckle waiters who’d witnessed his meetings with Röhm, these certainly had to be silenced—but this was a matter he’d rather attend to himself.
Hitler was feeling a little light-headed from lack of sleep. He summoned all company present, and started to read them a lecture denouncing the moral evil of homosexual vices; but had to cut it short, for he seemed to be losing his voice. As he thought of the business still to be done at Stadelheim Prison his lips felt dry, and he licked them.
*
Sepp Dietrich, commander of Hitler’s own “Leibstandarte” (his personal guards), was given the job.
The sultry afternoon sun was still high overhead when Dietrich stepped out on the Stadelheim prison yard with an S.S. officer at his elbow. Except for Röhm, the men in the cells had all been brought down and stood with the rest in the dust. There Dietrich saw all the familiar faces: Peter von Heydebreck, gaunt and one-armed—the hero of Annaberg: Hayn (under whose command, as Lothar remembered, his dear brother Wolff had fought long ago on the shores of the Baltic): Fritz Ritter von Krausser, Röhm’s deputy during his sick-leave and wearing his decorations for gallantry: August Schneidhuber, battered and bloody and barely able to stand: the young Count Spreti, no longer so debonair....