The Vengeance of Rome

  ‘Solitary,’ the warder said. Then the door was shut and locked.

  The bunk had no mattress, only a straw-filled sack and a pillow. At its foot was a water closet. The cell was freezing. The radiator was not turned on. It allowed me six paces back and forth and was about two paces wide. High above, the window was impossible to reach. Almost immediately I began to feel claustrophobic. By way of self-comfort I lay down on the sack and closed my eyes, determined to enjoy my privacy, if nothing else. Soon, however, the cold made me get to my feet. As rapidly as I could I walked the length of the cell, leaping up and down in order to keep warm. Eventually I wore myself out and stretched out on the pallet again. I had nothing to read, having left the VB with the others. I was depressed. My common sense told me I had been foolish to believe I was escaping this place. None of the prisoners had gone out before they had received some sort of hearing. Yet more than one had been released after being put in solitary. Did this mean I could now expect my hearing?

  This hope sustained me for at least another week. Occasionally on my way to the washroom, I caught glimpses of my former cellmates, but had no chance to talk to them. They had another companion now, a bald, emaciated-looking fellow I remembered from my film-star days, which felt extraordinarily remote to me. He had been a cameraman’s assistant, I recalled, a Greek or a Turk. The cosmopolitan nature of our cell was being maintained. After a while I saw nothing of LeBrun, the reason for my being put in solitary. He had been replaced by a pallid, squat fellow who seemed to have nothing to wear but a pair of extremely garish pyjamas. I never did discover who he was.

  The radiator in my cell remained cold. I became obsessed with keeping warm. I constantly begged the warders to have something done. Shortly after I ran out of sneg, whose properties were so useful in protecting against disease, I developed terrible influenza. I began to sweat and tremble badly. Obviously I was catching pneumonia. The guards asked me if I wished to see the doctor. They warned me that anyone taken to the doctor would, these days, usually be passed on to Dachau where they had hospital facilities. I insisted I was not as sick as I seemed.

  The best of the guards were genuinely sympathetic. Regulations demanded that prisoners be kept in reasonable comfort, and the original staff of Ettstrasse did their best to stick to the rules. The SA men were less reliable, though some were kindly enough. I could afford a few small luxuries, including the daily paper and a variety of chemist-shop medications, but it took me some time to recover. Still the radiator was not turned on. I longed for something to distract me and begged for a Bible, anything to read. One guard did eventually pass me a book, in English, which I read several times over, relishing the adventures of a slick, American detective who lived in the penthouse of a gleaming white modern apartment building and drove a supercharged roadster. With his barking automatics and sultry lady friends, Dick Dutton helped me escape from my gloom and reminded me of a time when I had also lived the life of a playboy, envied by all. I wished that I could have read some tales by Sexton Blake, Britain’s greatest living detective. His courage in adversity was an example which even now I attempted to follow.

  My natural vitality got me through my ordeal. I longed for a little ‘snow’ to put me back on my feet, but even without it I was soon able to stand steadily and feed myself. Was I in a state of shock? How had I descended so suddenly from fame and fortune? One moment I had been a highly paid public figure, the next I was a mere number. Whatever happiness I could achieve was entirely dependent on the mood of my jailers. Every day I asked about my hearing. Every day I begged someone to get word to Röhm or Hanfstaengl, Göring or Mrs Cornelius. I was afraid I would die there.

  I had been abandoned. I knew Mrs Cornelius would never have let me rot in Ettstrasse. She was either back in London or on location with no notion of what had happened to me. Göring was horribly overworked. Hugenberg had important Cabinet duties. Röhm was probably still in Berlin struggling to reorganise the army, while Hanfstaengl could already have left for the United States, as he had been threatening. Possibly Putzi was himself a prisoner.

  I enjoyed one or two breaks in my confinement. At one stage I was taken downstairs and photographed. I had to fill in forms, giving the details of my arrest. I wrote that I was in ‘temporary protective custody’ in the hope this would attract the attention of whatever bureaucrat was in charge of the documents. I complained about my cell and was told they were having difficulty finding plumbers. It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest they arrest some plumbers and release some journalists and actors, who were an impractical bunch at best. After a brief medical examination I was interviewed by a young man who warned me this was not a hearing. He had been assigned merely to verify the truth of my written statement. He was almost apologetic. When I complained that my cell had no heat, he immediately tried to sort the matter out, assuring me the police were not attempting to torment me. Ettstrasse, he told me, was never designed for so many people. They were already beyond their capacity.

  The prison was becoming more and more crowded. Increasingly, from all parts could be heard the yells, screams and imploring sobs of the prisoners. Fewer regular guards were on the corridors. The SA seemed to be taking over. Some of these were decent enough, especially the older ones who had served in the War. It was the younger, less experienced SA who gave us the most trouble. They were a rougher element, probably ex-communists and worse, who had jumped on the Nazi bandwagon after the election successes of 1933.

  I believe the young man who interviewed me meant well, but his intervention scarcely improved matters. After a month I was taken out of my cold single cell and put back with a group. But now I was with well-known Jewish entrepreneurs! Powerful in the outside world, they were in a state of shock. They assumed I was of the same persuasion as themselves. After I politely but firmly told them the truth, they tended to ostracise me. I must admit their action was not entirely disagreeable. However, when I complained to the SA guards about being identified with these people, they laughed and told me that I had better get used to it.

  And then one morning in early June the entire cell was ordered into the corridor. There was to be a clear-out. The prison was beyond capacity. Did this mean my release at last? Perhaps they had decided to keep only the prisoners accused of identifiable crimes. With our poor little bundles of possessions, we were marched downstairs and out into the courtyard where lorries were waiting. My anxieties immediately increased. Earlier I had glimpsed from above prisoners being herded aboard these transports. Shouted at, confused and frightened, we climbed into the overburdened vehicles. Where were we bound? Stadelheim? Dachau? My voice joined those of many trying to convince the guards that we had been wrongfully arrested. In the end I realised it was pointless. I was just another scream in the general cacophony.

  I decided very quickly that I would rather retain my dignity. I fell silent. I entertained some idea of climbing out from under the lorry’s’ canopy when we stopped and slipping away into the street. Had I any friends left in Munich? An opportunity of escape never presented itself. Having been institutionalised for so long, I had lost all initiative. Eventually I managed to reach a corner of the lorry where I could at least keep my balance and so made the journey in relative comfort. With relief we disembarked. My spirits rose when I saw guards in conventional uniform. From the high, stone walls and the general old-fashioned appearance of the place, I realised I was in Stadelheim. Amid further yelling, we tumbled out on to the cobbles of the castle. I looked around me. The castle’s walls were set at regular intervals with the barred windows of dozens of cells. It had been rebuilt and extended since Hitler’s time. I had seen it, of course, from the Tegernsee road. For such an old building, it had always seemed a rather agreeable place. From within, however, it had a bleak, hopeless atmosphere.

  Blinking in the bright summer light, I must have looked a wretch. My only shirt was worn and torn. My trousers were greasy and my jacket not in much better shape. Over my arm was my winter overcoat. I carri
ed a parcel containing the few possessions I had managed to keep. Yet the warders were not unkind. They spoke to us with that rough good humour I had come to expect from the best of them. One warder even helped me into the building. Nobody shouted at us. We eventually reached the reception office and stood in line before a wide, low desk where officials checked off our names.

  ‘Wankel? Discharge 12th August. Sentence begins at noon today. Jungerer? Release in a year. Sentence began noon yesterday.’ When it came to my turn I had to give my own particulars. They had no room in their ledgers for those of us under protective custody and seemed uncomfortable with the idea. I was sent to another desk with a smart SA man, as cordial as the others. He wrote down everything I told him, including my understanding that I had nothing to fear in the outside world, into a brand new leather-bound book, dipping his pen into his inkwell and wiping the nib carefully on a blotter. Then I was marched into the next room.

  Here we were told to strip to our shirts. Anything we carried, be it pencils, money, cigarettes, hats and ties, were listed on the outside of a bag which was then sealed. Those with conventional sentences were given prison clothes and told to keep them on, unless they had sentences of only a few weeks, in which case they could keep their clothes. I, too, was allowed to keep my own clothes. This gave me some hope, indicating that I might, after all, only be spending a short time in Stadelheim. Before I moved on to the next stage, I asked the SA man if he knew whether I had received any letters. I had written, I said, to his chief, Ernst Röhm, a friend of mine, and also to Göring and my wife, Mrs Cornelius. He looked at me as if I was touched and shook his head, smiling. If any letters came from Staff Chief Röhm or Air Minister Göring, he would be sure to let me know. Was my wife by any chance also an office holder in the government?

  Consoling myself that he would not be smiling quite so widely if my friends in the Nazi hierarchy found out where I was, I allowed myself to be directed into the medical room, decorated with terrifying posters depicting various forms of venereal disease. Here a prison doctor looked me over. Pronouncing me fit, he signalled for my SA escort to lead me away down a long corridor. The wooden floor was evidently maintained by prisoners and was so highly polished it almost dazzled me. I could look down and see my gaunt, sickly features staring back. Moments later a cell door was thrown open.

  I found myself in a long, gloomy room lined on both sides with tiers of bunks. A shaft of sunlight pierced through a dusty window above the WC, seeming to increase the depth of surrounding shadows. The cell was occupied only by two young men. One of them was short and fat, the other long and lean. They reminded me of the comic characters from the English magazines of my childhood, Phil May’s Weary Willy and Tired Tim. In spite of wearing prison uniform, they were both good-humoured but rather startled by my appearance.

  ‘You’re not Jewish, are you?’That was the lean young man’s first question. He did not seem dismayed by the idea.

  I took no offence. I shook my head wearily. ’No. I am American. My father is of English extraction and my mother’s family was originally from Madrid. Papa could trace his ancestry back to the Danes, and Mama’s family was in Galicia since before the Arab Conquest. Believe me, I’m used to the question.’ I had learned to offer this level of detail. Otherwise, I knew, I would not be believed.

  Because of my wounded penis, bequeathed to me by my ‘clinical realist’ father, many officials in Ettstrasse had also assumed I was a Jew. The truth was too complicated for them. It made no sense to tell them I was actually related to the Russian aristocracy or that I was from South Russia, which in some minds was associated with the Pale of Settlement. As I unpacked my few belongings, I added that I had made it my business, both in my native America and elsewhere, to point out the dangers of the aliens in our midst. Until its takeover by cynical interests, I was a recruiting spokesman for the Ku Klux Klan. If Germany had adopted the same racial laws enacted in Alabama and elsewhere, she would not need to be taking such radical measures now. The American people had a clearer idea what liberalism led to.

  This relieved them. They were, they told me, both National Socialists. They shook my hand and introduced themselves. The lean one was Adolf Harben. He was from Karlsfeld. The fat one was an SA sergeant, Christian Weymayer, originally from Pfaffenhofen. Like me, neither had been charged with any specific crime. Unlike me, they were not in protective custody. Harben said he believed he had been accused of some minor treason by his cousin, who disliked him, and Sergeant Weymayer had upset a local official who had had him arrested as a communist. Both expected to be freed soon. They commented on my seedy, hangdog look. Had someone been beating me up? Having arrived in Stadelheim recently, they lacked my experience of the worst prison could deliver.

  The rest of their comrades were off on work parties and would be back soon. I looked forward to meeting them, I said. Which was my bunk? I stumbled forward. The two cheerful lads helped me put my parcel and coat on a top bunk at the far end of the cell, but when I attempted to get into it, I was warned that this was forbidden. ‘The SA won’t allow it during the day. We can sit at this table or walk about. There is no smoking either. They look in on us at random, and if they catch us, we get punished.’ Weymayer indicated the peephole in the door. ‘On the other hand, if you need a breath of air at night or want to look out into the courtyard, you can stand on the can and get a bit of a view. At least you can sometimes see who’s coming and going. It’s best to do that in the early morning or evening, before the warders come round. It’s about our only entertainment.’

  I sat on my stool and read the VB for a while. My new friends wanted to know what it had been like in Ettstrasse, so I spent a while telling them until we heard a rap on the door. We stood to attention when the door opened to reveal a trustee in a clean overall, a bucket of soup over one arm, a basket of bread on the other. Compared to what I had grown used to this was Ritz-quality service. The guard doled out soup and bread and moved on down the corridor. The food was surprisingly good, containing a reasonable amount of sausage and fresh vegetables. My life was already improving!

  After lunch we played noughts and crosses until our other two companions joined us in the cell. Their faces were bright from their exercise. The pair were as good-humoured as my other cellmates. Pale-haired, grey-eyed, well muscled and bronzed, they were almost identical twins. The Grote brothers. Though on good terms with the others, they were Social Democrats, trade union railwaymen from Vaterstatten who had fallen foul of the Gestapo when they had complained about the closure of their headquarters. Not exactly radicals, they were astonished when they were suddenly thrown into jail. They, too, did not expect to be incarcerated for long. More from boredom than anything, they had joined a work party repairing the walls of the old section and had been promised an early release by the SA man in charge.

  The food that evening was barley soup and some tough rye bread. We were also given jugs of fresh drinking water. My comrades told me it was now all right to lie down. We took our bunks. They saw me as someone rather exotic, who had travelled widely, and they wanted to know all about America. I told them stories of my adventures, of my career as a film actor and also as an inventor. They were incredulous, finding my tales almost unbelievable, but enjoying them, they said, whether I told the truth or not. Hearing me was as good as listening to the radio. Now, if I could only produce some music for them . . .

  I soon became known as ‘the American’. They demanded more stories. They said I should write a book. I laughed. I had known people who wrote books. These days it probably wasn’t the safest profession. Even the SA laughed at this. They were as irreverent about Hitler as the socialists. In spite of my situation, I enjoyed that brief period of comradeship. It quickly ended, of course, when the Grote brothers were transferred to Dachau in the middle of June, and shortly afterwards the two SA lads were released.

  I was soon the oldest occupant of the cell, which began quickly to fill up with an entirely different class of prisoner, the sc
um of Jewish Munich, drug addicts, perverts and criminals of the lowest kind. The worst sort of Jew, as we used to say.

  I begged the warders to let me go out on work parties, anything to keep me away from the cell as long as possible, and for a while I was employed painting doors and woodwork in the new wing. But this did not last. They were unsatisfied with my work. I said that I was a trained mechanic. What if I worked on the transport? But they were contemptuous. Somehow they seemed to think because I was not a good house painter, I could not possibly make a reasonable engineer. I thought of telling them how their leader was allegedly a good house painter, if not necessarily Germany’s best choice of Chancellor, but of course I kept my mouth shut rather than jeopardise my release.

  My letters were not being forwarded, but I continued to write to my friends in the outside world. I fell into a deep depression, keeping increasingly to myself. While they did not like me much, the Jewish lowlifes scarcely seemed to mind. Most of them brought the foulest habits with them. They had no manners at all. They talked constantly in corrupted Yiddish. They told disgusting stories and revealed obscene desires. They hated everyone, especially any fellow Jews who had made something of themselves. They hated each other. Eventually I developed a habit of deafness, dumbness and daydreaming, which saved me the worst of their noise. I could not entirely block them out. Their smell was dreadful. They belched and farted and left food scraps everywhere. It was like sharing a room with a pack of rats.