THE MAD DOG OF EUROPE

A Novel about the Rise of Hitler

Albert Nesor

Illustrated

Grade Level and Copyright

Grade Level is 6.3 using the Flesch-Kincaid readability test in Microsoft Word.

Published in 1939 by EPIC Publishers, Inc. N.Y, N.Y.

Ebook edition published by Ebooks for Students Ltd., 2020.

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Publisher's Note

The back story of this book is extraordinary. It was talked about, pushed around and then silenced in Hollywood for years before it was finally published. "Mad Dog of Europe" began life as an anti-Nazi movie script. The author is not Albert Nesor as the title page shows, but Herman J. Mankiewicz, who was one of most respected script writers of his era in Hollywood. He went on to co-write the script for the highly regarded "Citizen Kane," considered by some to be the greatest American film ever made. You will see how fear of the Nazis dominated Hollywood in the 1930s and stopped a man like Mankiewicz from alerting the world to the the Nazi threat.

This is how the story starts:

In March 1933, Herman J. Mankiewicz, a respected Hollywood screenwriter and producer, took a leave of absence from Metro Goldwyn Mayer to write a screenplay about Adolf Hitler. The former New York newspaperman, playwright, theater critic, and Algonquin Table habitué was known for his sophistication and irreverent wit. But Mankiewicz was also deeply political, and as he watched the Nazis tighten their stranglehold on Germany, he understood the implications and felt he had to act. Abandoning his usual ironic detachment, he wrote The Mad Dog of Europe in a desperate attempt to awaken the American public to the danger of Hitler’s rise to power. The story of his screenplay’s ultimately fruitless journey offers a portrait of American culture in the years leading up to World War II and the obstacles facing those who shared his prescience. 1 

But in spite of its famous writer, Hollywood shunned the script and blocked production of the film. What happened? Why was Hollywood so silent about Hitler and the Nazis during the 1930s? The New York Times states that the reason was financial in a recent review of a book of Thomas Doherty's book about Hollywood called "Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939."

The motivation was largely commercial: the studios, with one important exception, did not want to risk the loss of a major European market by offending Joseph Goebbels’s Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, whose censors decided which foreign films would be shown in Germany.

The studios had seen early on what chaos the Nazis could cause, when Goebbels, not yet a state official, led a squad of brownshirts to disrupt the Berlin premiere of the 1930 antiwar film “All Quiet on the Western Front” with stink bombs, sneezing powder and cries of “Judenfilm!” Caving in to Nazi pressure, the weak Weimar government rescinded the film’s exhibition license, and Goebbels had won one of his first major propaganda victories. When the Nazis did come to power, they soon passed a law prohibiting Jews from participating in German movies — an edict that immediately destroyed one of the most creative film industries in Europe and drove many of its leading figures to America." ²

This collaboration of Hollywood and Nazi Germany was the subject of a second well-known book called "The Collaboration: Hollywood's Pact with Hitler" by Ben Urwand. Urwand writes:

The decision not to make The Mad Dog of Europe was the most important moment in all of Hollywood’s dealings with Nazi Germany. It occurred in the first year of Hitler’s rise to power, and it defined the limits of American movies for the remainder of the decade. There was an additional consequence to the decision, however, for only half of The Mad Dog of Europe was about Hitler; the other half was about his persecution of a minority group. In agreeing not to make the picture, the studio executives were setting a limit not only to what they could say about Nazis but also to what they could say about Jews.

Up to this point, Jewish characters had appeared with great frequency on the American screen. From 1900 to 1929, there had been around 230 movies about Jews, and audiences across the country had seen Jews in a variety of roles—as pawnshop owners, clothing merchants, sweatshop workers, historical and biblical personalities, and hilarious tricksters. “The Jew was a comic, crazily human figure to be encountered everywhere,” one commentator said in an account of this period. “His foibles were part of the American curriculum. His oddities and his accents were known to all.”

The arrival of talking pictures had continued this tradition. There had been several movies about Jews in the early sound period, including two landmark productions. In The Jazz Singer, the son of a cantor had become a popular performer. And in Disraeli, a politician stigmatized as a Jew had shown the foresight necessary to turn England into a great power. The renowned British theater actor George Arliss had won the Oscar for Best Actor for his performance as Benjamin Disraeli, and the film had narrowly lost the Best Picture category to All Quiet on the Western Front. ³

Jewish producers feared that the film would lead to their studios being banned in Nazi Germany, but the film also faced opposition from Pr0testant bankers and Catholic censors as an article in "Commentary" explains:

Opposition was formidable. Although the studios’ top executives were almost all Jewish, they were well aware of anti-Semitism’s prevalence in American culture and the dangers it posed to them. While leaders in other industries were praised for fulfilling the American Dream, successful motion-picture business executives were routinely portrayed as ignorant, jumped-up former garment merchants–“pants pressers, delicatessen dealers, furriers, and penny showmen,” as Karl K. Kitchen wrote in Columbia, the official Knights of Columbus magazine. Rather than as captains of industry, they were characterized as “moguls”—Oriental, Asiatic despots. They were maligned as greedy capitalists whose sensational products corrupted wholesome Christian Americans, especially during a time when the Depression fueled so many resentments. They knew that if they depicted Nazi abuses, they risked being branded as warmongers, trying to pull the United States into a European problem to help their co-religionists.

Studio executives also faced economic pressure. Most of the major studios were owned by publicly held corporations, so even if the studio chiefs wanted to proceed, their corporate bosses would not allow them to jeopardize foreign markets. As one historian put it, the motion-picture business was “an industry largely financed by Protestant bankers, operated by Jewish studio executives, and policed by Catholic bureaucrats, all the while claiming to represent grass-roots America.”

The Catholic bureaucrats in question staffed the industry’s trade organization, Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), which was often called the Hays Office, after the organization’s president, Will H. Hays. Besides representing industry interests, the MPPDA operated as a self-censoring body, created by the industry to forestall national and local censorship efforts. MPPDA was supposed to be the industry’s advocate, but its employees’ sympathies ranged from well-meaning to avowedly anti-Semitic, and those with the latter sympathies were not above exploiting Jewish studio executives’ apprehensions. When Nazis assaulted American Jewish employees of American film companies and pushed them out of Germany in 1933, the MPPDA spokesman presumably charged with protecting industry interests said only that “these men left the country willingly and have since returned to work there.”

Created in 1930, the Code by which the MPPDA regulated its members’ pictures reflected the Catholic values of the Code’s creators, addressing issues of profanity, alcohol and drug use, respect for clergy, nudity, sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, respect for the flag, miscegenation, and the sensibilities of other nations. MPPDA did not enforce it effectually until July 15, 1934, when Hays’s assistant, Joseph I. Breen, took charge of the MPPDA’s newly formed Production Code Administration (PCA). That meant the Mad Dog script was submitted during the interval between 1930 and mid-1934, a period film historians now fondly recall as Pre-Code Hollywood. During those early Depression years, studios pursued diminishing audiences with increasingly sensational films and stories filled with gangsters, violence, and less censorious treatments of sexual mores. ⁴

So the truth faced obstacles in the 1930s. Perhaps I am naive, but I was shocked to find out that Nazi Germany was so effective in influencing media in the United States in the 1930s. And I wonder how much damage their influence did. As you may know, President Franklin Roosevelt had a hard time persuading Americans that events in Europe in the 1930s should be of concern to us. Some Americans having seen the bloodshed of World War I wanted to avoid another intervention in Europe. One wonders today about the impact of a film about Nazi Germany early in the 1930s might have been.

As you read this book for a History or English class, think about the world today. Demagogues are ascending to power or in power in Russia, China, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Egypt and elsewhere. Hitler, of course, is an extreme example in terms of the damage he did to the world and as such deserves our attention even years after he was elected to leadership in Germany. What was his message to Germans as he rose to power? What promises did he make? What protections did he offer the German people? What were the "out" groups in German society that he promised to destroy? How did he keep power? Is the world different today? What is Hollywood presenting to us today about some of the human rights disasters of the 21st century such as the treatment of the Uighurs in China? What should the response of Apple, and American soybean exporters be to the detention of a million Muslim Uighurs in Chinese "re-education" camps? What is the responsibility of individual Americans to human rights violations abroad or at home?

Finally, Albert Nesor did not write this book. Nestor is Rosen spelled backwards. After Herman Mankiewicz and his friend Sam Jaffee could not find financing for "Mad Dog of Europe," they sold the rights to the script to Al Rosen, an agent who also tried and failed to find financing. Rosen published the script as a book in 1939. By that time, Germany had rearmed and had begun its conquest of Europe through its invasion of Poland in September, 1939.

Endnotes

1."The Anti-Hitler Movie That Was Never Made, The fascinating tale of The Mad Dog of Europe by Sydney Ladensohn Stern." Commentary Magazine. Downloaded August 14, 2020 from https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/sydney-ladensohn-stern/the-anti-hitler-movie-that-was-never-made/. Back

2. "Film No Evil" by Dave Kehr. New York Times. May 23, 2013. See the entire New York Times article at https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/books/review/hollywood-and-hitler-by-thomas-doherty.html. Back

3. Urwand, Ben. The Collaboration (pp. 75-76). Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition. Back 

4. "The Anti-Hitler Movie That Was Never Made, The fascinating tale of The Mad Dog of Europe by Sydney Ladensohn Stern." See https://bit.ly/3jhNf1M for the full text of this article in Commentary. Back

Other Sources: 

https://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/597/hollywood-and-the-nazis/ 

https://www.chronicle.com/article/When-Hollywood-Held-Hands-With/140189 

https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-674-72474-7 

https://www.jta.org/1933/10/23/archive/charges-nazis-here-using-threats-to-halt-production-of-mad-dog-of-europe 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265905094_The_Collaboration_Hollywood's_Pact_with_Hitler_by_Ben_Urwand_review https://muse.jhu.edu/article/549111 

INTRODUCTION

While this narrative deals primarily with Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, the title The Mad Dog of Europe is a quoted title, being no more than the by-phrase of the man on the street, who looks upon all power-mad dictators alike, as “mad dogs.” No deliberate attempt is made for sensationalism, but if the story as it unfolds does become sensational, startling, shocking or tragic, only the actual facts make it so.

No book sincerely written and intended for serious and intelligent contemplation should be one-sided. It is purposed, therefore, because the aversions and hatreds of Adolf Hitler are well known, to disclose what it is that lies behind those aversions and hatreds which, according to Hitler’s own viewpoint, motivate his bitter and ruthless racial and religious persecutions.

In assembling of this factual data, the writer has had access to exclusive and extraordinary sources, in some cases going directly to the very center of German community life, into the very bosom of actual families the individual members of which have either observed or experienced all of the incidents set forth.

Others have been contacted who have enjoyed the closest association with the Hitler movement since its very inception and who have seen, heard and known Adolf Hitler and been at his elbow through the years of his upward climb. The central character of this narrative, one Heinrich Schmidt, while being given, for perfectly obvious reasons, a fictitious name, is an individual who did exist in counterpart and who enjoyed both the confidence of and intimate association with Adolf Hitler in the very innermost circle of his official and social life.

This, therefore, is not just another narrative about Hitler, but rather is it a story that goes for its fabric behind the scenes; a story tense and dramatic, that builds and grips in its realism, because of the realness of its situations; taking for its locale the typical German village of Gronau in Bavaria; and for its leading characters, actual village folk, simple, honest, and forthright citizens who dwell together in cordial, friendly relationship, quite as their fathers and their grandfathers dwelt before them, with but one ideal and one code of ethics, based upon the Gospel of “do unto others as ye would be done by.”

While all that is herein recorded is based on facts, certain passages there may be, having to do with private conversations and councils of state which may be viewed by some skeptically, but a contradiction would be difficult to sustain for subsequent happenings have assuredly justified their usage.

Granted that while some there are who call Adolf Hitler, “mad dog,” there are also those who proclaim him, “Saint”—“Chosen of God”—“Man Inspired”— “Germany Itself.”

In presenting both sides of the issue herein involved, it remains for the reader to decide which sobriquet, by his own acts, Adolf Hitler and his accomplishments justly merit.

Let it be understood that in no part of this narrative is Adolf Hitler held up to ridicule, for Adolf Hitler is no accident. Upon him the Fates may have smiled and been kind, but, he was duly elevated to his present high estate; and step by step, with only sheer nerve and brazen audacity as his weapons, this former painter, paperhanger, day-laborer, this “elite of the gutter,” “a man without a country,” has crashed through bulwarks of state hitherto thought impregnable, and climbed rung by rung the most tortuous, treacherous and difficult political staircase in the world’s history, sweeping aside all opposing forces, reducing powerful counter-influences to ashes and routing all existing political parties, finally to seat himself upon “the throne” of one of the earth’s greatest nations and write in the history of civilization one of its most breath-taking, sensational and darkest chapters. Never in modern history has a nation so completely surrendered to a leader; never has any man ruled with power so great, nor been surrounded with such operatic splendor. This lowly-born individual, spawned in poverty and from a beginning wholly and utterly ignominious and forlorn, finds himself catapulted to the heights of fame; the most dramatic front page news-figure of a century, with such power as to cause kings, emperors, dictators, presidents and cabinet ministers of other nations to seek cooperation and look upon him as a pivotal figure in the preservation of the peace of the world.

Let the story be told, simply, unaffectedly and with the greatest possible accuracy, bearing in mind that history can repeat itself anywhere on earth.

CHAPTER I

In the spring in Germany that year the people on the farms sowed the fields. The sun spread its heat to the seedlings and the rain watered them. In Berlin the Easter displays filled the windows of the large stores and in time gave way to the more routine necessities of late spring. Serenity and a feeling of well-being were the watchwords of the season. If the Kaiser desired to extend the frontiers of his empire he gave no sign to his people.

Spring gave way to summer and the waters in the hills receded. Crops were good that year. In the villages the people celebrated. The women met at special kafjee-klatsches, and vied with each other to bake the best kuchen, to be eaten while they talked of their families. The men came together for their chess games and, if they spoke at all, discussed the problems of their township. This was in the spring and early summer of 1914.

Then suddenly, overnight, the tenor of the country changed. At Sarajevo a man was assassinated and His Imperial Majesty, the Kaiser, called his people to arms to defend their Fatherland from the aggressive enemy.

In the smaller hamlets and in the large cities there was uproar and frenzy where there had been peace and quiet. Cafes, shops, the streets, swarmed with a rush of hysterical people, with marching of soldiers. From the offices, from the factories, from the villages, from the farms, the soldiers came marching endlessly to the blaring of the bands which preceded them. Cheers and greetings from the citizens lining the sidewalks accompanied the troops in time with their every step.

“Deutschland Vber Alles! Deutschland Vber Alles! Vber Alles in der Welt!”

The bombs fell, the planes soared and the Kaiser exhorted his people to keep the enemy from their doors. First the young men-the strong men who formed the backbone of a new generation of Germans -went to their death in the trenches. Then with equal patriotic fervor the older men-the fathers-rushed to answer their Emperor’s call to arms and died in honor on the battlefields. The list of fatalities was matched only by the number of once fit Germans who came back to their homes when the fury had subsided; without arms, without legs, without faces, sometimes without minds.

It was difficult for the people to realize the end when it came. Hadn’t their Kaiser told them last week, last month, last year, that victory was imminent? Hadn’t they quickly invested their savings, from the lowest worker up to the highest industrialist, in war loans to the Fatherland to drive the French away from their country? Why then were their statesmen coming to terms with the enemy, allowing themselves to be surrounded on all sides, even tolerating the French within their own portals?

Slowly the confusion of their defeat became a reality and the Fatherland bowed its head in quiet resentment against the new order. Where there had been cries of “Deutschland Vber Alles” there was now talk of reparations; where victory over France was a foregone conclusion there were now conferences with the statesmen from the allied countries and, where there had once been His Imperial Majesty, the Kaiser, there was now the President of the German Republic.

In the villages there was no work and the men left their homes to come to the cities. In the cities there were ten men for every one position and nine starved. The men whose lives had been saved in the trenches now met in little groups to discuss their living death. Discontent rumbled from the ground, down from the hills, over the fields into the cities and fostered mushroom groups of opposition to the new Republic. . . .

CHAPTER II

In Gronau, in the province of Bavaria, the men were coming home from the war. The placid Leine River, on whose banks the town rested, donned an icy coat to welcome the first of the returning heroes. All through the winter months they came back, well into the spring of the new year.

When it grew warmer, sheep, goats and cattle grazed upon the grassy hillsides. Frisky colts galloped over the meadows and canaries, strayed from their homes in the Hartz mountains, chirped and sang and flitted among the leafy linden and magnolia trees. The whistles were silent in the factories of the great metropolis of Hanover a few miles away. The people of Heldesheim, across the river from Hanover, missed the familiar screen of smoke which, before the war, had settled upon them with regularity from the industry on the opposite shore.

The People’s Park in Gronau squatted in the center of the public square and its winding paths and trellised arbors were a source of great pride to the villagers. Their heroes-and the country’s-lived in stone among the honeysuckle and the roses.

The hamlet of Gronau differed only superficially from other small German villages. The old kirche, hallowed in its 14th century dress, faced the public square on one side. Opposite this old building the village fathers met in the Town Hall to discuss their governing problems. Further down the wide, shaded main thoroughfare stood the old stone synagogue, flanked on the right by the town library.

The warm sun of late spring lent diffuse coloring to the almost pastoral quiet of the square as Ilsa Mendelsohn made her way quickly across and down a side street to her home. She passed Herr Schmidt’s house and saw Fritz’s blond head bobbing up and down among the flowers in the garden. Her pretty young face creased into a smile. Fritz looked up at the same moment and called to her.

“Ilsa! Let me help you.” He indicated the packages in her arms and, coming up beside her, he took them from her. They walked slowly toward the Mendelsohn home.

“Where’s your father?” Ilsa wanted to know. “Borrowing chairs from the neighbors. He wants everyone in town to be here to welcome Heinrich.” “Even if he doesn’t invite everyone,” Ilsa said, “they’ll all come anyway. It’s an occasion!”

Fritz laughed. “Anyway, he’s taking no chances,” he said. “Didn’t you see the Zeitung this morning? He plastered the whole front page with news about Heinrich’s return and then reassured himself of a good response by writing one of his special editorials on the duty of every citizen to welcome the soldiers as heroes.”

“I haven’t seen the Zeitung in a week,” Ilsa told him. “I’ve been so busy helping mother with the food for today.”

“Your mother’s been really wonderful,” Fritz said. “By all rights she should have been planning a welcome like this not only for Heinrich but for Karl and Johann too.”

They became serious for a moment. Then Ilsa said, “Can you believe, Fritzchen, that it is over three years since they were killed?”

Fritz nodded silently in agreement. “I suppose your mother’s fortunate the war ended when it did, or Peter would have gone off next,” he said.

They came to the steps of Ilsa’s home and sat down.

“That’s the worst part of it,” Ilsa said thoughtfully. “Young people never seem to learn except by their own experiences. Peter would go, too, at the first opportunity. Johann followed Karl to the letter and Peter would have done exactly what Johann did.”

Fritz was helpless to add anything. He tried to change the subject. “Ilschen,” he suggested, “today is supposed to be a day of celebration. After all, at least Heinrich was saved for us.” Neither of them spoke for a moment. Then Fritz repeated, “Yes, Heinrich was saved for us.”

Ilsa looked reproachful. “Fritz! You sound almost as though you were sorry Heinrich is coming home.”

“Ilsa liebchen,” Fritz took her hand as he spoke, “I needn’t tell you how I feel. Certainly I am glad Heinrich is coming back-in a way. But in another way I am sorry.”

Ilsa placed her fingers on his lips. “No, Fritzchen,” she said, ‘‘You promised not to speak of this again. Please!”

“I know, I know.” Fritz was thoughtful. “After all, I guess Heinrich does deserve you. He’s a hero . . .”

“And he was shell-shocked, Fritz,” Ilsa reminded him. “He will really need me now.”

“You’re right, my sweet little Ilsa,” Fritz agreed.

There was a sound at the open door and Frau Mendelsohn appeared out of the darkness into the strong sunlight on the porch. New lines showed sharply around her mouth, giving credence to the death of her two boys in the service of the Emperor. If the war had just perceptibly sloped her shoulders, her determination would straighten them in time. Her voice was low, her manner quiet.

“Ilsa? I thought I heard you,” she said. “Oh, Fritz too. Good. Now you both can help me carry these things over.”

“Surely.” The two young people rose. Carefully, lovingly the foods, the lace cloth, the silver, the candies were gathered together. Slowly the people moved with their precious loads to the Schmidts’ garden.

Herr Schmidt was already there. He ran nervously about among the chairs, now placing them differently, now trying the strength of the long refectory table, now patting the bowls of flowers and stirring the burning logs. Everything had to be made exactly right. Despite his sincere love for both his boys, it was Heinrich in whom his hopes centered for the future. Heinrich it was who had developed under his father’s careful guidance into fertile ground for the sowing of those seeds of human justice so important to his father. Of the two boys it had seemed to their father that Heinrich was the more malleable, the more idealistic, certainly the less materialistic. The preparations for Heinrich’s homecoming extended beyond the confines of Herr Schmidt’s garden into the office of his newspaper, the Gronau Zeitung, into his future and into his life. If this concern raced through his head for the thousandth time he made no show of it.

“Hello there,” he called.

Frau Mendelsohn came into the garden first. She glanced cursorily about.

“Splendid,” she commented. “It looks lovely. And what a beautiful day! Especially for Heinrich.”

Herr Schmidt beamed agreement. “Yes, yes,” he said. Then, “Where is the doctor?”

“He had a very busy day at the hospital,” she told him. “There seem to be more wounded men every day.”

“It will be years before we will be a whole nation again in many ways,” Herr Schmidt commented sadly. “But tell me, when do you think he will be here?”

“Soon,” said Frau Mendelsohn. “Certainly before Heinrich arrives.”

There were last-minute preparations to take care of and the four people proceeded to these with equal enthusiasm. Individually and in groups the neighbors began to arrive. They offered their congratulations to Herr Schmidt, they drank together, they sat in the shade of the trees and they discussed the hopeful horizon of Heinrich’s future with sincere interest.

Around the bend in the road a few yards down Doctor Mendelsohn came into view. Beside him, gesticulating emphatically, strode Pastor Miller.

“I repeat,” said Pastor Miller, “that I am not a war monger.”

“But your argument, my dear Pastor,” Doctor Mendelsohn said quietly, “upholds the theory of war.”

“By no means,” the Pastor explained. “My point is simply that in any crisis-even in time of war-religious differences are not important. Therefore, even war may be said to have its good points.”

Doctor Mendelsohn retaliated, “But friendship among the religions has been formed in peace time as well.”

“Not on such a large basis, nor so easily,” Pastor Miller argued. “A war comes and millions of boys are thrown together. It is no matter that their religions, their backgrounds, their ideals differ. All that is swept aside. Instead they now have feelings in common-fear, patriotism . . . Their friendship will last . . ."

“But Gustav,” Doctor Mendelsohn interrupted, "our friendship has lasted through the years without the impetus of a war. Yet here we are, Christian and Jew.”

“Jesus Christ was both,” the Pastor answered.

The two men slowly approached the gate and Herr Schmidt greeted them.

“Good afternoon, good afternoon,” he said, excitedly. “I was afraid you wouldn’t get here in time.”

“We’d have been here much sooner if Gustav here hadn’t been brewing another war.”

“What! None of that! There’ll be no war talk around here today!” Herr Schmidt looked menacing.

“A solemn promise,” the two men said.

The crowd continued to increase. Anticipation mounted among the good neighbors of Gronau. Then Heinrich Schmidt came home from the war.

Heinrich stood at the entrance to the garden for a few minutes before he was discovered. He had come quietly down the road, unnoticed in the general excitement which hovered about his home. Thoughtfully his eyes sought out first his father-jovial, busy, concerned with his guests-then they fell up on Ilsa, his little Ilsa, whose emergence into maturity during his absence was startlingly evident. Fritz was there and the Mendelsohns. There were other friends, there were even some new faces and the fact that struck Heinrich forcibly was the abundance of joy and welcome which extended from the hearts of these people even into the inanimate things around them. Perhaps because he was acutely conscious of the contrast between this garden and the trenches, which had been his home for so many tortured months, he was overcome with a sickening feeling of nostalgia and a tremendous impulse to cry. It was as though the gaiety in the garden made filthier the rat-ridden trenches, made noisier the roar of cannon and the menacing drone of planes. It was the incredible realism of the scene before him which contributed to its own unreality and which made even more vivid in his mind the horrible reality of the war. Forcibly he shook off his mood of confusion and allowed himself a few moments respite as he thought of what his home-coming actually meant.

He would have peace now day after day, every day—peace with no thought of an end. He would have rest as well—and convalescence. How long he had been standing there when he was finally discovered he did not know. Herr Schmidt spied him first.

“Heinrich! My son!”

The two men embraced warmly.

“Father.” Neither of them said anything more.

Ilsa ran over and joined them excitedly. She kissed Heinrich and said, tenderly, “I'm so glad . . .”

“So am I.” Heinrich held her close, half protectively, half dependently.

In another moment they were completely surrounded. Simply and sincerely, the people of Gronau welcomed their hero in the fittest fashion they knew. In all probability they were welcoming not only Heinrich Schmidt but their own husbands and sons who would not return to them.

Herr Schmidt recovered sufficiently to remember some of his preparations and led Heinrich to a chair he had placed beneath a tree.

“Here it is, son,” he said. “Same old chair, same old tree—now sit down and rest. You’re home.”

Heinrich slid into his place easily, almost unconsciously.

“Now I know I’m home,” he said. “I can stop pinching myself.”

“If it’s at all possible, son,” Herr Schmidt said, “I hope you will also be able to stop thinking of the past year and take up your life where you left off.”

Heinrich settled back comfortably in the deep chair and looked upward to the blue sky. A cloud appeared suddenly on the horizon and moved quickly towards the sun.

CHAPTER III

Herr Schmidt came home early from the office and found Heinrich reading before the open fire. He removed his coat and hung it with his hat in the hallway.

“Good evening, Heinrich.”

Heinrich looked up from his book. “You’re early, father. Is something wrong?”

“Not a thing. What this village needs is news. Otherwise my paper will dwindle down to two sheets, mark my word!”

Heinrich laughed. “Not while you still write the editorials,” he said. “Who are you after now?” “Nobody. Not a soul. I think I’m really getting old.”

“Well, father, maybe I have some news for you that’ll make you young again.”

“Yes? What is it?”

Heinrich indicated a chair. “First get comfortable,” he suggested.

Herr Schmidt did so. “Well?”

“Father, I’d like to go to Munich.”

Herr Schmidt looked bewildered. “I don’t understand, Heinrich ... Is there something . . . ?” “If you mean, is there something in Munich—no. But I feel that there’s more of a possibility for me to do something there than here in Gronau.”

“I don’t want to sound parental or arbitrary, Heinrich, but it was always my understanding that you would remain here with me and come into the paper.”

“I’m sorry, father, but I couldn’t possibly.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t stay in Gronau. I’ve been here now for a few short months and I feel that, if I remain, I will never accomplish what I’d like to.”

“But what can you hope to accomplish, what can you possibly want to accomplish, which is more gratifying than a full life as a respected, liberal human being in a good community? There is a certain amount of pleasure to be derived from living honestly, if not startlingly, you know.”

“I don’t disagree with you, father, in theory,” Heinrich said. “But realistically I know that the Zeitung has been hard hit and it might be more lucrative for the family if I were to look elsewhere for work.” Herr Schmidt moved to the edge of his chair in order to extract his pipe from his pocket. He lit it and remained sitting in a strained position. He found it difficult to say what was in his mind.

“I had hoped some day soon, Heinrich,” he began, “that you would step into my place on the newspaper.” Heinrich nodded his head. “I know, father, but I don’t think you ever gave serious thought to you-yourself-if just that were to happen. Do you realize what it would be like for you to have no office to go to, to have nothing to fight about editorially, to have no real interest outside of your home and garden?” “I’d enjoy that,” Herr Schmidt told him.

“Maybe. For a month or two you might,” Heinrich agreed. “But I can tell you right now that it wouldn’t be for much longer. No, father, I couldn’t allow myself to step into your place, even if I felt sufficiently capable or sufficiently interested to do so.”

“This new stubbornness of yours, Heinrich—you must have learned it in the war.”

“I learned a great many things in the war, father. Among them is this most useful piece of information: to be a success today you must be a realist.”

“What do you plan to do?” Herr Schmidt asked. “I have no definite plans. What I think I’d like to do is go to Munich, use my past experience on the Zeitung and my military record and try to get into one of the larger newspaper offices there.”

“And if that fails?”

“It won’t fail, father.”

Herr Schmidt did not prolong the discussion. He was acutely aware of a difference in Heinrich’s attitude, but he could not be certain of the exact nature of the change. It seemed such a short time now since Heinrich had come home in a patriotic fervor, young and eagerly aware of his serious duty, to announce his enlistment in the army. It was difficult for Herr Schmidt to realize the existence of the calloused exterior in which his boy had become enveloped, so that it was therefore doubly difficult for him to penetrate beneath that surface. He could sense a dissatisfaction in Heinrich proportionate to the maturity his boy had gained during the war but he could not perceive the reason for it.

During the few months which had passed since his return, Heinrich, too, had been aware of this change. It was almost impossible for him to remember the time when the possibility of a future filled with the Zeitung, Gronau, the people in Gronau who were his friends, had aroused any happiness in him. For weeks now he had been making an honest attempt to wake himself out of his feeling of inertia and disinterest in the life around him. After the excitement of months of incessant warfare, the quiet monotony of daily existence in his own village filled him with an insurmountable ennui. His inactive mind rested only long enough to gain sufficient stamina with which to conjecture pictures of an ambitious future. These pictures which had filled so many of his days recently all led him away from Gronau into activities beyond—activities more arresting, more challenging, more important. There was no real lessening of his love for his father or for Ilsa, but his desire for adventure had grown to such stature that it now held the foreground.

Heinrich’s eagerness to get away from Gronau turned into anxiety with the weeks. There were many serious discussions, stormy arguments, hopeless pleas from Herr Schmidt, but Heinrich, aided by his newfound stubbornness, remained adamant. In despair and resignation Herr Schmidt was finally forced to agree with Heinrich rather than face the alternative of a disgruntled, frustrated son. Father and son decided upon Munich as Heinrich’s logical destination and the necessary plans were made for his departure.

In the premature darkness of an early winter evening, Ilsa Mendelsohn sat at the piano listlessly running through a Chopin Nocturne. Heinrich arrived at her home earlier than he had been expected, in order to prolong his last hours with her before his departure. From the black silence of the porch he could hear the soft strains of the piano. He let himself quietly into the house and tiptoed through the hall over to the sofa in the parlor. Ilsa saw him and stopped playing abruptly.

“Please don’t stop for me,” Heinrich said. “I’ll be quiet.” He made his way closer to the piano and sat down in the high-backed chair.

Ilsa swung herself around on the piano stool until she faced Heinrich. “I really didn’t feel like playing,” she told him. “I was just passing some time.”

“Where is everyone?” Heinrich wanted to know.

“We’ll see them later,” Ilsa said. “Peter’s upstairs doing his homework and mother asked you to excuse her. She had to run over to the Hess’s-—Max is sick and she wanted to help Mrs. Hess.”

“And your father?” Heinrich asked.

“Father’s been working so hard at the hospital that he doesn’t even come home for dinner any more.” “That speaks very well for his practice.”

“Not so well as you think. His private practice is being terribly neglected, as a matter of fact. It’s all volunteer work that he’s been doing for the government since the war.”

“In any case I think he’s fortunate. I envy any man who had the time and the energy to do the work he loves.”

Ilsa got up and walked toward the fireplace. Heinrich followed her and they sat down together.

“Tell me, Heinrich,” Ilsa said thoughtfully. “If you had all the time and sufficient income to see you through, what would you choose to do?”

Heinrich considered the question. “I don’t know, really,” he answered finally. “At one time I might have answered immediately that I’d want to be like my father, to do everything he does.”

“And now?” Ilsa asked.

“Now I’m not so sure.”

“But Heinrich, your father . . .”

“I know what you’re going to say: my father is the ’first citizen’ of Gronau. I suppose if I were to remain here my way would be clear to follow in his footsteps. I suppose, too, that I would have no real trouble in running the newspaper, maintaining its usual high standards and that eventually I, too, would become the first citizen of Gronau.”

“And you wouldn’t like that?” Ilsa asked.

“Oh, yes, indeed, I might like that. I might like that very well—but while I’d be enjoying myself and meriting the respect of all our people, I wouldn’t be wanting to. I’d keep telling myself, in my unbroken serenity, that it was all a compromise-that I was taking the easiest way out.”

“But why, Heinrich? What is there inside of you that would make you feel these things?”

“My little Ilsa, I wish I knew. But believe me, I am right when I say that there must be something for me to do outside of this narrow little village. Things are different now from what they were before the war. Big things are happening to Germany today and I want to be on the inside, to know what is happening, even to help if I can.”

“I think I almost understand . . .” Ilsa began. Heinrich, preoccupied, continued unaware of the interruption, “I can’t be one to sit by quietly and let things happen around me. In Munich I can go to meetings, I can read the big papers, I can talk with people—city people—who will have the answers for me. There are many things I’d like to know, Ilsa They say Germany started the war and we stand for that. Why? Germany lost the war and we have to pay for everything. We pay taxes, war debts, reparations, even Rhineland occupation! And what do we do about it?”

Ilsa shook her head, bewildered.

‘‘The sun will rise again in Germany,” Heinrich continued, “and I want to be there to welcome it. You lost two brothers, Ilschen. I sacrificed my own blood. I must try to justify that loss.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know. But believe in me, my liebchen. We will make something of our future. In a little while we will have a home of our own—in Munich, where there are concerts, ballets, cafes. Everything will be on a great scale. We can dine out, s can walk in the beautiful parks, we can see the wonderful things in the windows of the big stores. . . 

“But I could be just as happy here in Gronau without those things, Heinrich,” Ilsa said. “I was born here—I like the village, I like its people.”

“Yes, you do now,” Heinrich agreed. “But once you have been to Munich you will never again be satisfied here. I know. Ilsa, darling,” Heinrich’s voice took on a sudden intensity, almost as though it were equal importance to prove to himself as well as Ilsa that failure was unthinkable. “You do believe in me, don’t you? You will wait for me, Ilsa, won’t you?”

“Heinrich, I wanted to tell you . . .”

“You must wait for me, you must.” He was pleading, perhaps not so much for Ilsa herself as for a show of faith in his future, a justification of his existence.

All the sympathy that was in Ilsa’s being surged through her in a wave and swept from her lips the declaration of her love for Fritz she had been about to make. With tremendous effort, she nodded her head affirmatively. “I’ll wait, Heinrich, I will.”

“Then you do love me.”

Ilsa glanced toward the open fire which was burning low now. “Yes.” Her voice was quiet.

There was the sound of footsteps on the stairs and Peter called, “Ilsa!”

“Yes, Peter?”

Peter’s dark head appeared in the doorway. “Hello, Heinrich,” he said.

Heinrich acknowledged the greeting.

“I’ve finished my work for tomorrow,” Peter informed them. “Do you mind if I stay here with you?” He did not wait for an answer but sat down abruptly on the sofa.

“I guess there’s no point in saying no,” Heinrich teased.

Peter ignored the remark. At fifteen, he was an unusually serious boy with a head for studying and dreaming. His normal feeling of respect for his two brothers, Karl and Johann, had increased, when they died, to extreme adulation and hero-worship. Heinrich alone, among the boy’s acquaintances in Gronau, approached closest in Peter’s respectful affection to the position of his brothers. Heinrich, on his part, returned the respect and affection by accepting Peter as an adult.

They proceeded now to discuss in glorious conjectured detail Heinrich’s proud entrance into Munich, his easy acquisition of work, his quick rise to authority. By the time Frau Mendelsohn and the doctor arrived Heinrich was well on his way, in their discussion, to accepting an important government position.

“My dear colleagues of the Reichstag,” Heinrich bowed gravely in the direction of Ilsa and Peter, “I regret to announce that I will be unable to accept the most desirable position which you have offered me due to a sudden—a very sudden—” he glanced toward the doctor and his wife, “change in plans.” “Did you have to come in just now?” Peter demanded of his parents. “In five more minutes we’d have made Heinrich Chancellor of Germany!”

“I hate to break in on state business this way,” Frau Mendelsohn said as she handed her coat and hat to the doctor to hang with his in the hall, “but if you don’t mind, I would like to make coffee. Your father hasn’t had his dinner yet.”

“You do look tired, sir,” Heinrich said to Doctor Mendelsohn. “Perhaps I had better go now.”

“No, no-don’t go yet. Stay and have coffee with us. It will be the last evening for a long time.”

Frau Mendelsohn was not to be deterred in her general condemnation and exposition of the difficulties of a doctor’s wife. “He’d still be there in the hospital,” she said as she made her way back to the kitchen, “if I hadn’t gone there and pulled him home bodily.”

Dr. Mendelsohn sat down wearily beside Peter. “It’s a horrible thing,” he commented. “The toll of the war didn’t end with the armistice.” He looked at Heinrich. “You’re a very lucky man, you know, to be sitting here all in one piece.”

Ilsa excused herself to help her mother in the kitchen and in a few minutes the two women returned with a pot of steaming coffee, some food and cakes. While they ate, Ilsa spoke to Heinrich.

“I think we had better tell mother and father,” she said.

“Tell us what?” the doctor asked.

“Ilsa has promised to wait for me until I’m a success and then we will be married.”

Peter put down a cake he was eating and, with his mouth still full, he enthused, “Say, I think that’s marvelous! Do you realize you’ll be my brother, Heinrich?”

Frau Mendelsohn sighed and said, “I’m very happy for you both! And I know you’ll be very happy.”

The doctor waited a moment before he spoke. “I had always hoped this would happen,” he said, “and I am delighted to have another son I can be proud of.” It was late when Heinrich returned home that evening but his father and Fritz were waiting for him in the parlor. He quickly told them the news about Ilsa and his father’s happiness showed plainly in his face.

“I prayed that this would come about,” Herr Schmidt said.

Heinrich laughed. “It looks almost like a conspiracy between you and the doctor,” he said. “That’s just what he said, too, when we told him.”

Fritz had blanched noticeably at the news but he forced himself to sound sincere as he said, “I wish you every possible happiness in the future, Heinrich.” After they had retired, Fritz lay quietly in the dark for hours listening to Heinrich’s steady breathing beside him.

Just before the Munich train pulled out of the small station at Gronau the next morning, Herr Schmidt solemnly counseled his son for the future.

As the sound of the whistle traveled back to them over the platform, he said, “Above all, Heinrich, be a man in the true sense of the word. Never compromise on your ideals or beliefs. If you seek good company, you will find it. If you search with real determination for the work you love, you will find that too and, whatever it may be, you must give to it and to your employer the best of your efforts as well as your unfailing loyalty.”

In another minute Heinrich was waving from the platform of his car as the train, slowly gathering momentum, jerked and pulled away in the direction of the great city of Munich.

CHAPTER IV

Germany lost the war. On the heels of the confusion and despair which followed its defeat, a drought of unemployment hit the country. The heroes, returned from the battlefields, found no work to be done in their homes. The young men, the more fortunate men, left the farms and villages behind them and gravitated to the cities. In the cities the lack of work was oppressive. Long lines were formed to the offices, to the factories, to the stores—and the heroes were turned sadly away. “NO HELP WANTED” said the signs and “nothing today,” echoed the employers.

Slowly the lines formed again—this time to the relief stations—and the heroes lost a little of their glory as they hungrily swallowed their bread and soup. The precision of the goose-step faded away unnoticed beneath the steady shuffle of their tired feet.

The young men, the fortunate men, who had left their homes for the cities, sent letters of hope to their people. At first they wrote, “Times are hard now but things will be better soon.” Then their letters grew shorter. Still they could write, “Maybe this week, maybe next, there will be work.” As the months passed, their letters grew less frequent and soon there was no word from the cities. These young men, the future of Germany, were silenced for lack of faith.

On the streets of the cities the noise of the people increased. Men met on the corners and argued the strength of their country.

“The reparations are to blame for it all,” shouted one man.

“We can thank the Treaty—the Versailles Treaty—for everything,” said another.

“You’re wrong,” shrieked a third. “It’s the Weimar Constitution that’s behind all our trouble.”

In the beer halls of Munich a fourth man out—shouted them all. He pounded the tables, wiped tears from his eyes and exhorted the drinkers. “Let us repudiate reparations and the Versailles Treaty.

Let us put to work for us—not against us—our Weimar Constitution. And lastly, let us free our country from the yoke of the Jews and the Communists!”

There were men in the beer halls in Munich who listened, intent, to the speaker. When he finished they met and grew friendly and talked over plans for the future. They shed the plain suit of the villager and emerged once again in uniform—inexpensive, effective—a brown shirt, severe in its cut.

On April twentieth, in the year 1889, in a three-story house on the main street of Braunau in Austria, Adolf Hitler was born. When his father, whom he detested, died in 1903, the boy Adolf went out to work in his village at any job he could find in order to help his mother. His love for her was almost psychopathic in its intensity and she had a tremendous influence upon him. From the time he was six she suffered with cancer, although she did not die until eleven years later. Despite his attachment to his mother, or perhaps because of it, he left for Vienna at her insistence when he was sixteen—just one year before her death. He brought with him to Vienna the fruit of his mother’s encouragement—a portfolio of water colors painted completely without imagination but with an almost architectural precision. Perhaps it was this careful attention to detail which prompted the judges of the Academy in Vienna to advise him to study architecture instead of creative art. This attempt at guidance created a new problem for the young man as his funds were meager and prolonged study, therefore, impossible. He found odd jobs shoveling snow in the winter, house-painting in the busy seasons and managed, although precariously, to exist. When the war came he was drafted as a non-commissioned officer in what had once been the German army and which had by then become the Reichswehr. With the end of the war came the end of his education. With a smattering of Marxism and a brief, if intense, intelligence of the Treaty of Versailles as his intellectual basis, Adolf Hitler embarked upon a political career. As a spy paid by the Reichswehr, he was commissioned in the year following the Armistice to determine the attitude of the Munich workers toward the new government. To accomplish his end he insinuated himself into the company of men in the Bavarian People’s Party, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and a number of trade unions. Conscientiously he attended their meetings, proudly he detailed the results of his findings to his employers. One dissenter, discovered in the course of his duties, he did not report. This man was Gottfried Feder. Instead, he came over and again to hear Feder speak and marvelled at the striking similarity between his own theory of anti—Semitism and Feder’s.

Through Feder, Hitler was introduced into the inner sanctum of Anton Drexler’s German Workers Party, an embryonic left-socialist movement. Within a few months (in July, 1919), although still in the employ of the Reichswehr, Hitler became officially identified with this radical party by being duly appointed as member number seven in its council. For almost a full year afterward (until June of 1920, when his affiliation with the Reichswehr ceased), Hitler’s loyalty remained thus divided.

CHAPTER V

Heinrich wrote home to his family of the wonders of Munich. He told them of the crowds, he described to them in detail the noise and the bustle in the streets. He visited the museums, he looked in the store windows, he drank beer in the saloons and he mingled with the people. That was Heinrich’s first week in the city.

He learned from his casual acquaintances, men he spoke to at the bars, that employment was hard to find. At first he put down this talk to inertia on the part of the men who had looked for work. In an early letter to his father he mentioned this peculiar indifference which prevailed in such an overwhelming number of men and blamed the war for killing their courage and determination. He was convinced, he told his father, that he himself would be working in just a short while. He felt it would take a matter of weeks to adjust himself to the life of a large city.

Heinrich was not at all discouraged when he was turned away from the first newspaper office at which he had attempted to secure a position. The personnel director was sorry he could not be more helpful but explained to Heinrich that conditions since the war had not been conducive to good business and that, therefore, they had been cutting their staff consistently over the months rather than increasing it. He wrote again to his father telling him of this interview and explaining, as if to himself, that such a condition might hold for a few of the newspapers but certainly not for all of them.

In another few weeks he stopped posting a letter home daily in order to conserve a few pfennigs of his decreasing capital for the more important necessity of carfare with which to look for a job. He wrote now, instead, only every five or six days.

Finally, as time wore on, Heinrich arrived at the point where he had canvassed every newspaper office in Munich, both large and small, and had been told by each of them that there was no possibility of work. Without advising anyone of the extent to which present conditions had forced him, temporarily at least, to change his plans he determined to find something else to do so that he would not have to return home and admit defeat.

The morning after he had arrived at this decision Heinrich awoke early. In the air hung the chill of a reluctant winter which the early morning sun weakly and ineffectively attempted to dispel. From the warmth of his bed Heinrich regarded the cheerless mien of his bleak walls. The few pieces of shabby furniture allotted to him stood glumly in the weak light which managed to find its way through his one window overlooking the blank gray wall next door.

To Heinrich, as he arose, his future seemed no brighter than his abode. He slipped into his robe and made his way across the hall to the bathroom.

He was thoughtful as he shaved. He wondered what nature of work to seek, what occupation there was which would earn for him a livable wage and at the same time grant him freedom enough to continue his periodical appearance at the newspaper offices. It occurred to him, ironically, that his education and training had specialized him so successfully that his earning ability outside of the field of journalism had decreased in inverse proportion to his specialization.

By the time Heinrich had finished dressing, the only definite plan of action he had decided upon was, in itself, indefinite. Before entering the bakery at the corner where he had his rolls and coffee each morning, he invested in a newspaper. As he sipped the steaming liquid he conscientiously turned to the “Help Wanted” section on the rare chance that a position might suggest itself. This theory soon proved over-sanguine. There were a few stray jobs offered but each called for skilled training in fields completely outside of Heinrich’s resources.

Below the list of advertised positions was another list of the names of various employment agencies. To one of these Heinrich made his way.

It was still early when he arrived there so that he was able to see the director after only a short wait.

The director was an elderly man with a kind and thoughtful face, perceptibly worried by the dearth of employment around him. He listened quietly while Heinrich recounted to him, together with his qualifications, the story of his futile attempts to find work.

“You see,” Heinrich said as he finished, “I have come to you for advice as well as for work.”

The director excused himself for a moment while he looked through a pile of papers on his desk. Finally, he looked up and said to Heinrich, “I have here a few positions, but for the most part they call for someone with experience in a particular field.” His pencil was going down the margin of the paper before him. Suddenly it stopped. “Here is something,” he said, “which we might possibly consider for you. Have you ever done house-painting?”

Heinrich quickly erased his visible disappointment. “Not professionally,” he admitted, “but I have naturally done that sort of thing in my own home. In fact, now that I think of it, I made a good job of it.” “This particular company does not require real experience,” the director said, “so that would be no stumbling-block. Suppose you go over there and have a talk with them in any case.” He wrote down the address on a small card and handed it to Heinrich.

The address, Heinrich was glad to note, was within walking distance. He thanked the director for his interest and help and made his way out to the street. The city was waking up now and the bustle and rush of its daily life had begun. Turning into a side street a few squares down, Heinrich searched the facades of the buildings for the number he wanted. After a few hundred feet he came upon it.

A large sign over the doorway read “FRITSCH AND SONS, Painting Contractors.” Heinrich entered into a small stuffy room at the end of which, behind a glass partition, a man sat at a desk. Around the room, along its walls, were long benches to one of which Heinrich made his way. He noted bitterly that, despite the early hour, there were at least twenty men there before him.

Apprehensively, Heinrich settled back on the bench, leaning against the wall. He gazed absently before him and unconsciously made a mental note each time one of the men ahead of him sat down at the desk behind the glass and talked to the clerk who bristled with self-importance. It occurred to him that the search for a job was almost like the game of “Musical Chairs”—the men in turn went in and sat down on the chair opposite the clerk and the one who was thus seated when the music stopped playing would have the job. Heinrich was engaged in this thought when he felt a tap on his arm.

He turned, startled out of his day-dreaming, to look at the man next to him who had interrupted his chain of thought. He saw a comic (but at the same time peculiarly pathetic) face with intense eyes, a ridiculous toothbrush mustache and carelessly combed hair, a lock of which straggled down over the forehead. The stranger’s attire quickly conveyed to Heinrich the fact that this man was nearly, if not completely, destitute. The once smooth surface of his black leather shoes had spread into a thousand cracks and threads had begun to unravel along the cuffs of his shabby trousers. It was more the disarming sincerity of the man’s attitude than any show of pathos or comedy, however, which engaged Heinrich’s attention and interest.

The man spoke in an undertone, almost in the manner of a conspirator. “I’ve been here half an hour,” he said, “and they’ve already hired five men. I don’t think our chances are very good.”

Heinrich nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said.

The odd little man had obviously been waiting only for some show of kindred spirit. A sudden deluge of words enveloped Heinrich and in a few minutes’ time he was hearing of all the trials the man had gone through to find work. At one point, he confessed, it had been necessary for him to resort to panhandling on the streets in order to keep alive and keep over his head the roof of the flophouse in which he was living.

Heinrich showed no more than a polite interest in the stranger’s story but this did not seem to alter the man’s desire for conversation. He asked Heinrich his name and Heinrich told him. Then, out of politeness, Heinrich asked, “What is yours?”

“Adolf Hitler,” the man said, pulling nervously at his fantastic mustache.

The weary line of men moved slowly forward toward the desk behind the partition. It was finally the turn of the man before Hitler. He was a young man whose worries had lined his face with deep creases. In his anxiety to reach the desk, in his hope for work, he hastily slipped into his coat which, until now, in the closeness of the room, he had carried on his arm. Crossing quickly in the direction of the clerk, he burrowed his arm into a sleeve and, as he did so, a card fell out of one of the pockets. With unusual alacrity Adolf Hitler jumped up and retrieved the card. He was about to call out when his eye fell on the printed matter. Cunningly, he called out in a loud voice across to where the worried young man now sat with the clerk, “You’ve dropped your union card!” He walked over and placed it on the desk, near enough for the clerk to make out “Independent Trade Union.” His expression was innocent. “I thought you might want it.”

The young man was speechless. The clerk swelled with sudden authority and intolerance. He dismissed the young man abruptly. Then he turned to Hitler and smiled.

“That was a smart piece of work. How smart are you in everything else? Are you a good painter?”

Hitler beamed. “I’m an A-1 painter,” he replied blatantly. “But I can take the job only on the condition that my helper goes with me.” He indicated Heinrich who sat, aghast, at the edge of the bench.

“Very well,” the clerk said, “I can use two good men.” He handed Hitler two slips of paper. “You and your friend fill these out,” he instructed. “You can start tomorrow.”

Heinrich’s first impulse was to turn on his heel and walk quickly away from this man who had displayed such extreme heartlessness and cruelty. His feeling of revulsion had been so intense as to make him feel physically ill. In another minute, however, the realization came to him that, whatever the means, he finally had a job. Remembrance of the long, hopeless months he had just come through helped him to make a quick decision and he took the slip of paper from Hitler’s hand almost ferociously.

Thus began the close association and intimate friendship between Heinrich Schmidt and Adolf Hitler. For weeks, thereafter, they worked together at their jobs of painting houses, fences and signposts. Heinrich gradually succumbed to the will of Hitler, and adopted in their entirety all of his fanatical beliefs. Hitler spent many hours telling Heinrich what was wrong with the government and Heinrich echoed his every pronouncement.

There were occasions when Hitler waxed most confidential and told of his early obscure and ignominious youth and of his discouragements and frustrations; when he was the object of ridicule by his neighbors, and was kicked and cuffed about at will by his schoolfellows and playmates because of his slight stature and weak, colorless personality; never being able to have himself taken seriously nor to enjoy the friendships of those worthwhile, to whom he might go with his boyish problems and get comfort or encouragement. None there were in the town of Braunau in Austria, where he was born, who paid him the slightest heed. His family was of the obscure peasant group, and the boy Adolf had no more identity than the thousands of others of similar lowly birth.

“You see, Heinrich,” he told his new friend, “I never was anybody and never had a chance. When my father died I had to go out and work at anything I could get, to help support my mother, and then shortly before her death, with only a few crowns in my pocket, I set out for Vienna. There, to keep from starving, I was a day-laborer, a snow-shoveler and a beggar; sleeping in doorways and on park benches, my only associates other wretched souls as destitute and homeless as I. And there were days and days of absolute starvation, when I had not even a crust of bread. I wanted to be an architect, and I also had a talent for water-coloring, but again I was frustrated, for the Academy judges in Vienna only laughed at me; perhaps because I looked so shabby and such a vagabond. But during all this trying period, I was keenly interested in all that was going on in the Government, and I haunted the libraries, devouring every book and newspaper. First I leaned toward the teachings of Karl Marx, but soon I became an anti-Marxist when I learned that the principal Marxists were Jews, and for Jews, Heinrich, I have a livid hatred. When I found out that Vienna was a powerful Jewish center, I came here to Munich and left behind all loyalty to the Hapsburgs and gradually came to despise the entire Austrian state. Here again, I was a beggar on the streets between odd jobs as laborer, and once more I tried to get instruction in architecture and watercoloring, but it was no use. Then came the war and I enlisted, and when that was all over with, I was only a Lance Corporal. And then followed more heartbreaks and hardships; being kicked this way and that. Then in 1919, I got some good, steady jobs as painter and paperhanger, and had a few crowns to rub together in my pocket and this made it possible for me to go around the beer halls. Then I found congenial companions, who, like myself, were dissatisfied with the way the government was being run. I used to expound my theories to them, and they listened and applauded me, until I got a following and I was expected to come night after night and talk to them. So you see, I had a tough time of it, taking it all in all, up to this time when people began to respect me and that gave me the morale and confidence in myself that I needed.”

Heinrich, throughout this narration has listened with great interest and sympathy.

“I am glad you think enough of me, Adolf, to tell me so much about yourself, and I understand and feel for you. It makes us friends. Here, let’s shake hands and pledge our loyalty and friendship, one for the other, for always.”

Hitler eagerly thrust out his hand and took Heinrich’s in a warm clasp. “Yes, Heinrich Schmidt, friends always; we will go onward and upward together.”

Hitler took Heinrich into the beer halls and introduced him to his radical comrades. All spoke boldly of their pet plots to overthrow the present government. Every word high treason, but to Heinrich, profound truth and sound logic.

At these beer hall gatherings, Hitler grew eloquent.

“Friends and comrades,” he shouted, “the hour for action has arrived. Germany, our great Fatherland, is harassed by enemies from the inside and the outside. Our beloved nation is in despair. The government is a network of international Jewry, Catholicism and Free Masonry, all three groups betraying us and selling us out to their own advantage. We must stop them!” His teeth clenched, his eyes glittering. “We must stop them!” he shouted.

“Heil!” screamed one of his listeners.

“Heil!” hurled back Hitler, pounding his fist on the table. “We will overthrow this present regime.

We will form a new party. We will bring to Munich a fighting force that will conquer and mow down all those who oppose us.”

“Heil! Heil! Heil our new party!”

And so it was that, capitalizing upon the national unrest, Adolf Hitler delivered violent tirades nightly against the Ebert regime, and the Treaty of Versailles (despite the fact that he, himself, was virtually “a man without a country,” having forfeited his Austrian rights when he joined the German army, with the new Republic still denying his German citizenship.

Hitler’s fanatical agitation and wild speech-making in the Munich beer halls continued night after night, attracting wide attention. Certain other factions, then waging a fight against the Red element in Munich, approached him and made him a member of its “Commission of Inquiry” concerning Communist activities. Hitler tackled the job with tremendous fervor. With a violent hatred of Communism, which he believed to be entirely Jewish, the report he rendered attracted still more favorable attention, earning him other similar assignments.

It was then that Adolph Hitler started to make history. He drafted the platform of a new political party to be thereafter known as the National—Socialist Party, later abbreviated to ‘Nazi,’ the word “Nazi” being coined from the words National-Socialization; the “N-a” from the first; the “Z-i” from the second.

The new party started off with a membership of only six, all penniless nobodies. It was not long before Hitler, with Heinrich as chief lieutenant, forced his will upon the others, gaining complete dominance over them, becoming their leader.

Night after night he rushed from one Munich cafe to another, waving his arms in the air and shouting his Nazi doctrine to all who would listen, gradually surrounding himself with a group of equally hysterical and fanatical radicals.

Weeks passed and it became evident that Adolf Hitler had actually founded a distinct and decidedly important movement, one which the city fathers and other political groups were forced to notice.

This new Nazi party gathered its momentum and gained its influence chiefly because of its militant activities against Communists.

Soon there were great Nazi mass meetings, and Hitler organized his own troop of strong arm men and “sluggers,” which he called the “S.A.” (Sturm  Abteilung), distinguishable by their brown shirts. These brown-shirted youths became no more nor less than Adolf Hitler’s own private army, obeying his every command, rushing in at a moment’s notice to any point in the city to break up any Communist gathering or demonstration.

Hitler now talked with Heinrich and his other cohorts concerning a suitable emblem for his private army.

“The day will come,” he said, “when the whole nation will wear this uniform. They will carry this emblem of ours with more devotion than they now do the ridiculous banners of the church. For the ideals of the Nazi Party shall become holier to them than their creeds. We shall work towards replacing the cross of Christ with the cross of loyalty to our party, the Swastika.

“This,” he shouted, “the Swastika, shall be our emblem. It is the symbol of life and eternity; and we will take from our national colors, the red, for the square; the white, for the circle; the black, for the hook cross.”

In continuing to break up Communist meetings, Hitler began to gain the recognition of the better element of Munich and his private army increased and was constantly active.

It was at that time that he sprang into prominence as a convincing orator; his humble, even grotesque appearance seemed to add to his magnetism and power, rather than to detract from it. Screaming, gyrating and shouting to the high heavens, he gripped and held his audiences in an unbreakable spell. They believed him sincere in his idealism and theories.

A born actor, Hitler lashed himself into a fury; one instant, chest heaving, nostrils distended and perspiration streaming down his face and the next, pleading and wheedling in a voice choked with emotion.

More and more aggressive became his onslaughts upon the Communists. He denounced them publicly at every opportunity with increasing violence, thereby forcing them into the open, thereby gaining adherents and thus rapidly increasing his own Nazi ranks, the S.A.S.

Hitler’s power mounted. Day by day his sensational activities swept Munich like a forest fire. He and his band of Storm Troopers continued to go about Munich and vicinity, breaking up Communist meetings, after which he himself rushed upon the platform, taking over the meeting, delivering his fiery attacks upon the present political system, the governmental heads, the injustice of the Versailles Treaty and otherwise inciting unrest and dissatisfaction in the minds of thousands, enlisting from their ranks still more followers and adherents to the principles of his Nazi Party.

The people were easy prey for Hitler and his hysterical, fanatical oratory. All was confusion in their minds. And the basis of this confusion was the great number of strange and fantastic governmental issues, a different one being drafted and promulgated almost every night. During this period, in fact, there were 36 different political parties, with the country shackled by the Versailles Treaty, confronted by the Red menace and with a direct, formidable threat from Moscow. Thousands of Communist agitators were holding meetings, openly defying the authorities, routing the police, marching through the streets waving their red banners, with their brass bands booming the “Internationale,” the Soviet anthem. There was general consternation, deep and ever-present fear that any moment the Empire would be taken over by the Communists, with all German ideals, culture and independence brought to an end. It was this confusion and fearful situation, more than anything else, which made the moment a psychological one for Adolf Hitler to present to the Empire a platform of defiance of the Versailles Treaty with a vigorous, concentrated and unrelenting fight against the Communists. This crusade automatically evolved into a general attack upon all those of Jewish faith, it being Hitler’s devout desire to brand all Jews as Communists.

Germany had become the plaything of the moneyed interests. Greed and speculation were rampant. The old German army had practically vanished with the signing of the treaty at Versailles. The press of Germany was completely demoralized and, together with the major industries, seemed dominated by the militarized nobles or, as they were called, “the Junkers.”

New political pressure groups sprang up everywhere to replace the new form of democratic government, based on terror and intimidation, each in a radical attempt to seize the governmental reins, in an attempt to make millions of Germans believe that the Fatherland had been sold out and that its lost prestige must be restored; each party in turn claimed to possess the restorative power. To attain this end, no means were too unscrupulous to be employed.

The German people at large were unable to comprehend the limitations and restrictions set upon them, their conduct and their government, by the terms of the Versailles Treaty and all the various peace pacts. The stolid and simple German mind believed that the war had been fought in defense of their Fatherland, rather than as an aggressive war. Now, in their despair, they became increasingly bitter. Especially the younger generation, who found themselves wholly unable to fit into this new and changing world about them. A majority of them had spent their adolescent lives in the trenches. Their training for peaceful pursuits in business or the professions had been neglected; rather were they taught to be bullies, murderers, bravados. Germany bled from a million wounds. Her people, out of this bloody maelstrom, found it difficult to fit themselves back into the new social and economic order. Men who, as officers, had devoted four years to blinding, maiming and killing off their fellow men, had become hardened steel automatons, finding it difficult to go back to the classes of high schools or universities to resume their study of simple academics.

Millions of youths of Germany had become soldiers by profession, working at this business of war day after day, months without end; it was all they knew. Any kind of a peace treaty would have left them embittered and reluctant to lay down their arms. Within them dwelt a permanent resentment against every other country. They considered that ending the war deprived them of their right to avenge all that the Fatherland had suffered and lost; everything and everybody that worked toward a settlement or a peace of any kind was resented. Anyone who negotiated with foreign diplomats was, to their way of thinking, a traitor to the Fatherland. Rathenau held conferences with envoys of the Allies. They shot him from ambush and cried, “Down with the Jews!”

Erzberger continued the negotiations. He, too, was assassinated and at him they shouted, “Down with the Catholics!”

But it was not these youngsters, puppets in their twenties, who were responsible. The real culprits were the men who pulled the strings, the men who, unable to conceive a constructive idea, could not give up their dreams of greed and power.

Diplomats from many foreign powers made overtures to help Germany. Money, supplies, loans from outside began to flow into the country. Relief organizations began to spring up on all sides; the American Relief Administration, supervised by Herbert Hoover; the American Jewish Relief—all exercised a tremendous humanitarian influence over a downtrodden, ill-and undernourished population, and through their ministrations, saved and restored untold thousands, preventing loss of life which might have matched the losses during the war. Coincidental with this relief work, there ran a weird and Micawber-like strain of resentment upon the part of certain leading statesmen throughout the world who registered protests against these relief organizations, expressing an unholy fear that any relief or resuscitating influence rendered to the German people would in time give Germany the opportunity to rearm herself and once more menace the peace of the world.

Hence, to counteract the terroristic movement in the industrial parts of western Europe, the Allies took possession of the Rhineland, while newspapers throughout the world printed stories of Germany’s secret attempts to rearm.

So the German nation was torn between the ideals of the past, to which, through centuries, it had been educated, and the merciless new realities which had swept the nation over night; the situation demanded the building of a new social and political order to preserve what was left—the pitiful inheritance of a bankrupt nationalism. The Army still being in the grip of an iron discipline, revolutionary committees were set up and a strange and unheard—of new doctrine was being preached; namely, that all men are born equal.

It was in the Hofbrau Haus in Munich that Hitler held his first important mass meeting, and it was then that he printed and distributed his first pamphlet; the pamphlet attacking the Versailles Treaty, the Jews, and the Church of Rome. There he unleashed the power of his oratory to an audience of more than a thousand; the occasion also marked the first time the Empire had ever heard the Versailles Treaty openly attacked and denounced as a source of all of Germany’s troubles. This was the meeting that really drew the attention of the entire country to Adolf Hitler.

Night after night found him climbing upon the stage of some beer hall giving vent to his vitriolic diatribes against the existing order. One of the principal Nazi strongholds, where Hitler held forth as a sort of Messiah and could pack the place to the rafters with his hope-hungry, straw-clutching, despairing disciples, was the Circus Krone, a huge, dimly lit hall that seemed a most unusual place for a circus performance; for in the ring, instead of sawdust and tanbark, was a row of plain oak tables and long rough wooden benches; the proverbial sardines in the can were not packed more tightly than were the people on the nights when Hitler took over the circus. In the dim light could be seen faces of every type and strata of society. Those of the fashionable districts, the theaters and the cabarets and those from the darkest slums. Haughty aristocrats, luxuriously appareled, sat next to laborers in greasy overalls. There was no class distinction in a Hitler audience. Here, a simple mechanic was as good as a Hohenzollern; an ex-private soldier as good as a general; a bank clerk as good as a cabinet minister. The one dominant feeling of all was the salvation of the Fatherland. And all had put their hope and faith in Hitler. Outside the hall, a cordon of pickets protected those inside from intrusion by “the Red scum.” And inside, on the platform, at the rear, and along the walls stood the S.A.’s in their plus—four knickers and brown shirts, with the Swastika insignia on their arms.

Among this motley audience were faces that were haggard and eyes that seemed to be searching for some lost glory of the past or some new hope for the future. The air was thick with smoke from pipes, cigarettes and cheap, smelly cigars; the tables, covered with mugs of lukewarm beer and paper plates with sausage and cheese, added to the odors of the dense atmosphere.

The crowd sat drinking and eating eagerly awaiting the great moment,—the arrival of the “Leader.”

It was easy to strike up an acquaintance, and to swing into an animated constructive conversation, or a fierce and violent brawl. One man entertained the idea that “We must all perish, there is no hope, no money, so why bother?” Another felt: “Nobody is interested in me. No one cares anything about Germany except the Jews, who are in a hurry to take everything we may have preserved from the war.”

And so this cynical, soured, despairing throng looked to Hitler to save the world from the plague, for didn’t he say: “If we still believe and come to these meetings and go out and work for the movement, we will all be happy and prosper again.”

A great shout arose from the crowd and there came the sound of distant marching and cheers of “Seig Heil! Seig Heil!” The drums crashed; the band played. A torch—light procession swung into view. There were the marchers with their red swastika banners; their faces wild, fanatical, grim and resolute, suggesting both suffering and sacrifice. Soon the platform was crowded, the audience ablaze with enthusiasm. All was suppressed excitement. A simply dressed man came to the front and held up his hand.

“Silence!” he shouted.

And then, rising from a chair in the back, a slim figure in brown shirt, khaki trousers and high boots, his face pale and a shock of hair drooping over his forehead, moved slowly forward to the center of the platform. From the hundreds of throats rose a mighty roar that rattled the very rafters. “Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!” Gradually the cheering ceased; the crowd quieted down; order was restored.

Hitler began to speak. The multitude sat on the edge of seats, mouths open, hungry for whatever morsels of hope he might toss them.

He expressed hatred of Germany’s enemies and limitless, undying love of the people and the Fatherland. He spoke of all the forlorn and false hopes. He vehemently denounced the Red Plague and everything pertaining to it. He challenged the false statements of so-called Democracy. He poured scorn on the Jews, calling them the international world plague. He spoke of the diabolical anti-Christ and anti-man regime of Moscow. He called for belief and eternal love and asked pledges of endless sacrifice for the beloved Fatherland. He called for belief in God. He declared that a soldier’s duty to die for his Fatherland was a sacred duty, the highest honor that could be bestowed on man. He called for a return to the family circle, for the sanctity of womanhood. He promised the revival of Germany, the awakening of the old beloved Empire. He spoke of the coming of the Third Reich, not as a possibility, but as a certainty. He demanded the strictest discipline and willing sacrifice on all the nation’s great issues. He denounced the greedy immorality of the Versailles Treaty. He promised to smash the shackles that bound his country to that vicious document. He promised food, work, opportunity. He spoke of unemployment as the source of demoralization and ruin, and he promised to do away with it.

The audience was moved and thrilled to its innermost being. They shouted and yelled and sent up rafter-ringing cheers, until it was with difficulty that Hitler proceeded with his tempestuous speech. Frequently his hand went up and he pleaded for quiet. He continued to exhort his hearers: that the cooperation of the Church and the State is mandatory, and the revival of religion is the panacea for most of the nation’s ills. He beat and pounded all that into the minds and hearts of his audience with a fervor and perseverance and a faith that would have moved mountains; he reiterated every point, shouted, waved his arms in the air, pulled at his hair, stamped, shook his fist, and gritted his teeth, haranguing his hearers for over an hour.

While those great flames of constructive thought and bombshells of oratory were shooting forth, a collection was taken among the audience. The S.S., his private army, passed the collection plates.

Everyone, held in this spell, gave to the limit. Coins poured into the plates with a clatter, accompanied by cries of “Give! Give!” “I only wish I had more to give,” and “Seig Heil!”

The speaking over, drums announced again the movement of the torchlight procession. Hitler was departing.

Many tried to break through the crowd to kiss his hand or to touch his coattail, but he was surrounded by a thick wall of bodyguards. Everyone left the Circus Krone with the conviction that if Germany was to be saved from the Red Plague, it was Hitler who would save her.

The enthusiasm, fervor and loyalty of these audiences, the faith of these people that they would gain their salvation only through united support of Hitler, could not have bought with all the gold in the world.

Hitler at that time was living in a dilapidated old house in a poor, obscure section of Munich; his bare rooms were approached from stairs in the back of the house. It was in that shabby flat that Hitler’s haggard, half-starved cohorts gathered, there actually was the cradle of all the earth—shaking political upheavals that were to follow. In a room practically bare except for a table littered with papers and newspaper clippings, and a few stiff backed chairs, sat the Fuehrer. The impression he gave there was quite different from that of the platform. He seemed even more humble; his manner gentle, shy; he spoke with a certain sense of humor, almost mocking, as though he realized that people thought him mad; but there it was that Germany’s problems were discussed and plans and plots were hatched that were to write in world history some of its most vivid pages. From there it was that Hitler sent crashing out into space his most startling and radical beliefs; that Europe is a great family; that struggle and war between its nations means suicide for all; that if European civilization is to be preserved, Europe must be united; that good family life and the sanctity of motherhood is the nucleus of civilization; that the national revival must evolve from national traits; that history and tradition (Can only surmount obstacles if there is an absolute belief in God and Church; that it is the sacred duty of every citizen to live, work and die, not for the benefit of himself but for the nation; that the State stands above all, the unity of the State is the ultimate aim, without which no national revival is possible; that class cooperation, not class warfare, must be the program of the State; that the Versailles Treaty must go overboard with all that is attached to it; that the German right of self-determination was violated by the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain, which divided the German race among twelve different states; that fifteen million Germans were forcibly separated from their Fatherland and denied the right to reunion.

Adolf Hitler continued to throw his arms in the air, and shout his hatred for the Communist and Jews. Street corner meetings. Beer halls. Any place where he could gather a crowd and hold a meeting. His great hold on the people at this time was in feeding their appetites with governmental scandals. He would harangue them on the corruptive practices of the higher-ups, going into their private lives and raking up skeletons. Extravagances and fabulous outpourings of money upon the one side, people destitute and starving on the other. True or not. Hitler knew mob psychology. He knew how to fire the emotions of the common people. He knew how to fan the flame of dissatisfaction. His point of attack always was what was wrong with Germany, never what was right. Ever violent and inflammatory was his attack on the Jews.

Coincident with his mass meetings, he would plaster an entire neighborhood with slogans, such as “Republic of the People, or State of the Jews?” Another sign, “A Jewish World Swindle.” And still another sign, this one outside the building where the meeting was held, “Jews Not Admitted.” Communists attempted to break up these meetings, but quickly, determinedly and fiercely Hitler would rush his Storm Troopers to combat them. And in every case the Communists were routed. No question of Hitler’s powers as an orator. The gassing he suffered in the war gave him a deep-throated voice which magnified the intensity of his speech. He held the masses under a hypnotic spell. His great thundering climax to every speech. “Awake Germany!” His audacity and boldness in criticizing the government, while stunning his listeners, never failed to get him a volcano of applause, for he was daring to criticize and drag out into the open alleged scandals and corruption which the simple—minded populace had feared even to think, much less to express. Always his fight was: “To Save Germany from Communism.” The morale of the people was down to its lowest ebb. What a moment for Adolf Hitler!

His fiery tornadoes of audacity lifted up these masses to a veritable hysteria of new hope and faith. Adolf Hitler to them seemed a veritable Luther. What he preached was Gospel. Hitler alone talked. The others only listened.

All this time he, himself, was practically destitute, averaging no more to eat then hunks of greasy sausage and slices of stale bread he carried in his pocket. But to surmount all his difficulties was his one great, dominant ambition. His desire for power.

Greater and greater became his need for funds. It would take money to carry on his propaganda work. His Storm Troopers must be uniformed in the distinguishing brown shirt, the sleeve band and the military hat. His great handicap was his sense of inferiority and timidity in facing his betters; feeling most ill at ease when in the presence of intellectuals who in the main considered his doctrines undignified and impossible and he, himself, an uncultivated, clownish radical of grotesque appearance and ridiculous fanatical ideas.

But while this group did not believe in him, there were thousands who did and who surrendered to his leadership in ever-increasing numbers. He had a knack of explaining the most complicated political matters in simple, acceptable form. From small contributions he accumulated a fund sufficient to get control of a newspaper, Der Volkischer Beobachter. And now, with this tremendous advantage of having the means of writing editorials, sending out notices of meetings and reporting the activities of the Nazi movement, he intensified interest, spreading propaganda; his Nazi party began to grow by leaps and bounds through this complete control of a newspaper that devoted its every word and line to his own cause.

Hitler now had as his chief cohort Ernst Roehm, who took command of the Storm Troopers and became one of his first backers, finding money for arms and maintenance for the private army in critical times when money had to be raised. Roehm, upon many occasions, contributed much that was vital, both in money and in organizing initiative; there is no question but that several times he saved Hitler and the entire Nazi movement. There also appeared on the scene at that time Hermann Goering, a morphine addict who likewise had an insatiable desire for power and applause and who was known throughout the Empire as ruthless, bloodthirsty, tireless, bitter, relentless, reckless and vitriolic. With Roehm as head of the S.A.’s and Goering his right—hand man, Hitler rose to still greater power, until the fatal day when he broke up the wrong meeting in Munich, thereby meeting his first serious defeat.

CHAPTER VI

In Gronau the leaves were beginning to turn and a few fluttered wearily to the ground. The days were growing shorter and in the evening there was a slight chill in the air. Herr Schmidt, working steadily through the early autumn afternoon, was surprised when it became necessary to turn on the light above his desk. The steady rhythm of the printing press beyond the wall of his office sounded like a soothing melody to his accustomed ear as he now sat, thoughtfully fingering a recent letter from Heinrich. He read through it again for what must have been the fifth time.

“It’s no use, father,” Heinrich wrote. “You work and work—and what for? Taxes that go to the French, that pay the British and the Americans. What future is there ahead of us here in Germany the way things are now?”

“The future will take care of itself, my boy,” said Herr Schmidt to himself. Then he added, feelingly, “Why, oh why, can you not come back to me?”

The letter continued, almost as if in answer to the worried father, “I can no longer believe in the altruistic practice of the spirit of brother-love and humanity which you were so careful to instill in me, without feeling very much like a theoretical idiot. Where have they brought us?”

Herr Schmidt laid the letter down on his desk and, leaning back in his swivel chair, fretfully passed his hand across his brow. Aloud he said, “Germany is an old country, my son, older than you. She has been through wars before and come out of them stronger than ever.”

There was a low rap at the door and a voice outside called, “May I come in?”

“Is that you, Gustav? Come right in.”

Pastor Miller entered. “I thought you might want to walk home with me, Rudolph,” he said. “It’s almost dinner time.”

“I’ll be glad to,” Herr Schmidt replied. “I want to speak to you anyway, about Heinrich.”

He took his coat from the rack on the wall and slipped into it. He gave his desk a last-minute scrutiny and secured a few loose sheets of paper beneath a weight.

They left the office and walked through the square to a turn off the main street.

“Tell me, Gustav, what has happened to our young men since the war?”

The pastor nodded to a man who walked along the other side of the street. “What has happened to them? In what way do you mean?”

“In this way,” Herr Schmidt said. “I remember when we were young, everything seemed so simple to us. It was natural for us to trust people, to believe in them implicitly unless it later developed that we had some very good reason to doubt them. Now you find the young men bitter, suspicious, very few fortunate enough to know what they really want. Even those who can decide what they want to do, though, can’t seem to accomplish their purpose or attain their goal.”

The pastor slowed his gait. ‘‘In our time, Rudolph, it was a much easier thing to retain some hope and some spirit. Don’t forget that, although we might be as chameleon-like as we pleased, our country around us was almost changeless. We had our Kaiser behind us at every step, or so we thought. Today we find the set-up has changed entirely. Our young men went off to the war to fight for their Kaiser when they were young boys. As young boys they had to do men’s work and, on top of that, they came home to find that their Kaiser had deserted them.”

The two men took a few steps in silence. Then they heard Doctor Mendelsohn’s voice calling to them to wait for him. They stopped and turned in the direction of his voice to wait for him to come up to them. The doctor looked tired and Herr Schmidt commented upon it.

“I am tired,” Doctor Mendelsohn confessed. “This is the first opportunity I’ve had all week to come home in time for supper.”

“You work too hard and too steadily, my friend,” said the pastor. “You should try to arrange for a little rest.”

“Medicine is the one profession, Gustav,” said the doctor, “where you cannot arrange anything, especially your time, to suit your plans.” He shook his head wearily. “At least I am fortunate in one respect—I love my work.”

“Rudolph and I have just been talking about something very close to that subject,” said Pastor Miller.

“I am still waiting for your answer to my question,” Herr Schmidt interposed. “Your explanation of the loss of the Kaiser is not enough of an answer for me. I still cannot understand what makes our young men of today so bitter—so beaten. I’ve just had another letter from Heinrich in which he renounces as worthless the tenets of a humane, liberal code of living. He is full of criticism for the government, the country, the people—even the foreign countries. His criticism in itself denies its own value because it is all destructive. He has found out practically everything that is wrong with the government but makes no mention of how he can right it.”

“Your argument is not convincing,” the pastor said. “If Heinrich is striking at everything about him to find an answer then he certainly is not beaten. In fact, I might say it is a very good sign that he will come through all right, just as we did before him. You will admit that Germany is certainly going through one of the worst periods in its history and it is natural for the people—especially the young people—to wonder. But even a dog fights back, you know. It’s a healthy state.”

“The age makes a special difference, too,” the doctor volunteered. “It is the men in Heinrich’s group who feel the change worst of all. When you’re as old as we are, you protect yourself with a certain amount of philosophy and resignation—or perhaps it is nothing more than a stabilized glandular system. At Peter’s age, on the other hand, you have the almost serene indifference of a group of young men who never knew anything outside of the world we now live in. What is the result? In sublime innocence Peter (and other youngsters like him) combats the conditions around him, continues his studies and is not at all confused by the philosophy of ‘it—could—have—been’ which projects itself into the minds of the young men in Heinrich’s group.”

“That theory would leave Fritz in a category all by himself,” said Herr Schmidt. “His age would place him in Heinrich’s group but realistically he belongs in Peter’s.”

“There you have an exception which certainly cannot disprove my point,” the doctor argued. “As a matter of fact it may prove simply that Fritz has arrived at his glandular balance in life earlier than the others.”

“Rubbish!” Herr Schmidt said, explosively. “It has nothing whatsoever to do with glands. If you follow Gustav’s idea then it develops into a difference in degree of intelligence which seems like a more logical theory. Heinrich, being more intelligent, does not allow himself to accept things as they are without investigation.”

It seemed almost as though he was trying to justify his own lifetime of teachings, to excuse the son who had failed him.

Pastor Miller was not content with this application of his point of view. ‘‘Not necessarily,” he reasoned. ‘‘By the same token you can allow that Fritz, being the more intelligent of the two, has come to terms with life more easily and therefore more quickly. In support of this argument I have the fact that, since he was a little boy, Fritz knew that he wanted an education, not only for the sake of the education itself but because of the immeasurable aid it would give him later in the business world and it looks as though he was quite right, too. I spoke to Simon Gerson the other day and he told me that when Fritz finishes school there will be a permanent place at the store for him instead of the part-time work he now does.”

“I know, I know.” There was the slightest hint of parental pride in Herr Schmidt’s voice.

‘‘On the other hand,” the pastor continued, “we have the case of Heinrich, who wanted his education as an end in itself. Now it returns to him as the cause for an end to his world. It may be, as you say, a mark of intelligence. Also, it may not be.”

Doctor Mendelsohn interrupted. “Leaving aside the question of degree of intelligence and concentrating mainly upon Heinrich’s group as a separate entity, how do you explain their unreasonable distrust of each other?” He directed his question mainly to the pastor.

“I was coming to that before you ran into us,” the pastor said. “I have noticed a revival among these young men of a truly deplorable emotion of hatred which it has taken our Protestant Church centuries to try to kill off.”

“Just because you two are in the majority as Protestants,” Doctor Mendelsohn said, “is no reason to take all the credit upon yourselves. Rabbi Goldman and all of his colleagues would make the same claim for themselves.” His voice feigned indignation.

“I must admit you’re probably right,” Pastor Miller agreed. “I suppose Father Christian also would take me to task on behalf of the Catholic Church. And he would be right, too. It was stupid of me to forget, even for a moment, that the basis of our religions is the same in this one respect even though they differ vastly in so many other ways.”

Herr Schmidt was still thinking of Heinrich. “This hatred that you speak of, Gustav, what is it exactly? How do these young men come by it?”

“When you ask me to define it, you are asking me enter the field of psychology,” the pastor replied, would say that it had its roots in a fear which was nurtured inadvertently from childhood, through the confusion of adolescence and also in our particular case, through the more unfortunate later circumstances in the lives of young men like Heinrich.” “That sounds very much as though you’ve been reading Freud,” Doctor Mendelsohn commented. The pastor spoke slowly, seriously. “Maybe Freud's more to do with it than you think but my guess would be Nietzsche and his Superman theory. In any case, this inherent hatred has been fed upon the vast amount of unfortunate circumstances surrounding the lives of our young men today and has developed to an epidemic, spreading like fire all over our country—or, to use a different analogy, you might say it is more like a mad dog, biting every one with whom comes into direct contact.”

“I hope you are wrong, Gustav.” Herr Schmidt sounded worried. “Because there have been many cases on record where mad dogs turned upon their masters and, in such an eventuality, Germany would have much to fear.”

The quiet street down which the three men walked is empty now, except for an occasional stray figure hurrying home in time for the evening meal. Herr Schmidt’s house came into view a few yards down and the men approached it slowly.

Herr Schmidt spoke again. “What has really worried me,” he said, “is that Heinrich seems still to be working at his house-painting, after almost three years. It is almost as though he has forgotten that he ever wanted to do anything else.”

“Honest work has never hurt anyone,” the doctor said. “In view of the terrifying economic conditions of the past few years, I should say that Heinrich is showing extreme wisdom in holding onto his work which is a reality, after all, and not just a fine theory expressing his taste.”

“I have read more about that man you told me Heinrich has been associating with,” said the pastor. “Hitler, that is.”

“That worries me too,” Herr Schmidt admitted.

“I wouldn’t be too worried. The man sounds like a fool. The one thing that puzzles me is how an intelligent boy like Heinrich can take him seriously. Every article I’ve seen about him makes Hitler an object of derision.”

Herr Schmidt seized upon the words of the pastor with eager enthusiasm. “That’s exactly how I feel! And I have no way of accounting for Heinrich’s change in attitude toward the man. I remember that his first reaction was a mixture of sympathy and revulsion.”

They had arrived at the gate leading into Herr Schmidt’s garden and the doctor brought their conversation to a close. “We will have to continue another time,” he said, “or I will miss my supper.” He excused himself and left the two men standing together in thoughtful silence.

As he approached his own home, the doctor could make out, in the now quickly failing light, the figures of Ilsa and Fritz seated comfortably on the steps to the porch.

Ilsa was the first to see her father. She interrupted Fritz, who had been in the middle of a sentence, to call out, “Mother! I see father coming now.” Then she lowered her voice. “I’m sorry I interrupted, Fritzchen,” she said. “What was it you were saying?”

“Something of great importance, young lady. I was just about to tell you that with your potato kuchen in my pocket I could bribe my way to fame.” He indicated the dish in his hands and held it aloft carefully, with mock reverence.

Ilsa laughed lightly. “With my potato kuchen in your pocket, I'm afraid your father’s dinner will be quite cold. You’d better go on home with it. And please don’t forget what I told you about having it heated for five minutes in the oven before it is served.”

The two young people rose to greet the doctor, who came up the walk toward the house. Then Fritz took his leave as Ilsa and her father went in to dinner.

Fanny, the Mendelsohn’s maid, looked up from her last-minute ministrations at the supper table as the doctor entered upon Ilsa’s heels. In her long period of service with the family, she had grown from a young and timid girl into self-assured middle age. She scoffed now at the doctor. “Humph! So you’re really here,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re coming to when a man can’t manage to have dinner in his own home more than once a week.”

Doctor Mendelsohn continued this special game they had between them and bowed his head in mock contrition. “I’ll try to be good the next time,” he promised.

Fanny’s stolid Teutonic face took on an air of serious sympathy. “I don’t like to have to be harsh with you, doctor,” she said, “but I know how worried Frau Mendelsohn becomes when she sees you looking so tired.”

Doctor Mendelsohn lowered his voice and spoke conspiratorially as he bent over the table in Fanny’s direction. “I’ll tell you what we had better do then, before Frau Mendelsohn sees me,” he suggested. “If you could manage to find just a little bit of schnapps for me, just about this much,” he held up his small finger and marked it off at a point between the first and second knuckles, “it might make me a little more vigorous. . . .”

Fanny nodded in understanding and slipped out of the room to get the bottle and a glass.

CHAPTER VII

Heinrich walked quickly down the brightly-lit street, self-important in the feeling of military efficiency which his simply cut brown shirt and swastika arm band lent to him. He stopped at the entrance to the Burger Braukeller and noted the time.

“Good,” he thought to himself. “I am early.”

He stepped quietly into the warm and crowded atmosphere inside. To the sound of excited voices and the click of beer mugs, he walked back unnoticed among the few hundred patrons and sat down at a small table along the wall, at the far end of the hall. He glanced about and saw with satisfaction that many other brown-shirted men had taken their appointed places. A curiously mingled feeling of pride and, at the same time, disgust surged through Heinrich again, as it had done so many other times in the past few years since his association with Hitler. From the day they met Heinrich had never been able to put out of his mind completely the scene of inhuman cruelty which he had witnessed in the offices of Fritsch & Sons. He could forget, temporarily, the face of the worried worker who had been turned out of the office by Hitler’s agile trick—and his moments of forgetfulness came mostly when he was in Hitler’s physical presence—but, sooner or later at most unexpected intervals, the worker’s despair would rise before his eyes almost as a reality.

At this time, if he had been asked, Heinrich himself would have been unable to find an answer for his almost blind submission to Adolf Hitler. There were many things—cruelty being only one among them—in the person of this ludicrous little man which sickened Heinrich to the point of nausea.

In the more lucid intervals of Heinrich’s concern over his relationship with Hitler, the young man could recognize as such Hitler’s megalomania which, in its intensity, could brush aside whatever person or thing appeared as an obstacle in its path. But so strong was Hitler’s personal magnetism that Heinrich, on many occasions against his better judgment, found himself unable in Hitler’s presence to disagree with this egoist or to refute him on any subject. Ever since Heinrich had made his choice, in the face of economic necessity, to continue his acquaintanceship with Adolf Hitler, his position was, in fact, very much like that of a man drawn morbidly but irresistibly into close contact with an object which spelled certain death.

Lately, so careful and constant had been Hiller’s influence over Heinrich, there was very little originality or personal feeling left in the young man with which to arrive at his own solution of Germany's ills. Like the constant dripping of water on a stone, Hitler’s theories of National Socialism fell unceasingly on Heinrich’s ear and, in the manner of the water, eventually left an irrevocable groove, an indelible impression, in Heinrich’s mind. So completely removed from the sphere of his father’s liberal views and so completely under the domination of Hitler’s person is Heinrich, that he had accepted in full the tenets hate, force, destruction and falsity which hammered unceasingly at the foundations of his humane judgment and, in time, destroyed them. If an occasional beam of understanding and human sympathy remained and came to light every so often, it was through no lack of conscientiousness on the part of Hitler. Had Heinrich not known of the existence of the quality of deceit which Hitler practiced, it would have been easy for him to make himself believe that adherence to so unethical a creature was based only on the desire to help rid his Fatherland of the menace of Communism—for it was on the basis of Hitler’s promise to destroy the mushroom growth of the left-wing government opposition parties that so many of the true feeling young German patriots flocked to his side. However, Heinrich’s intelligent discernment of the false note in Hitler’s patriotism would not allow him, with any clear conscience, to believe in the righteousness of his submission to such leader and it was, therefore, on many occasions a matter of great personal confusion and conflict to him. His concern with the matter was now, again, temporarily forgotten by a sudden upheaval in the far corner opposite him in the large beer hall.

There was a tremendous swell of excited voices and Heinrich, from where he sat, could make out a large majority of Brown Shirts who had stepped in to quell the disturbance. Out of the midst of this confusion stepped the nimble figure of Adolf Hitler.

He jumped on to a table and raised his hands, demanding silence. By this time the attention of the entire assemblage was riveted upon the center of disturbance. As Hitler raised his right hand in the Nazi salute and shouted, “Sieg Heil!”, Heinrich’s eyes wandered to each of the exits and noted, again with that peculiar, guilty feeling of pride, that the Brown Shirts were well on their guard at every door.

Hitler spoke abruptly, excitedly. “The National Socialist revolution is under way,” he screamed.

A wave of uneasiness greeted his announcement. Then there were shouts and some derisive laughter from his audience.

Hitler continued, unworried by his reception. “This hall is filled with hundreds of our men, fully armed. No one is allowed to leave!”

A few of the people who had begun to edge toward the doors stopped short and waited, petrified.

Hitler went on. “The Bavarian government and the government at Berlin are overthrown. The police have rallied to the Swastika.” His voice was victorious. “We are now marching to take possession of the town hall and you are all going with us. That is all.” He swung down from the table abruptly and issued orders to his men to organize the thunderstruck people.

The people stood in small groups, conversing in an undertone. Some were resentful, some amiable, but for the most part they were frightened. Now the Brown Shirts herded them together at the point of gun and they shuffled uneasily, from one foot to the other, awaiting some sign to proceed to their destination.

One courageous man among them ducked unseen behind the bar and crept stealthily along in a hopeful search for some sort of exit from the bar to the outside the Hall. In another moment he found what he was looking for. Cut out of the wall behind the bar and one with it in design, this door had obviously been overlooked or else unseen by the Nazis, for it stood completely unguarded. The man waited sensibly for few minutes until, from another part of the beer hall, a commotion suddenly arose. He quickly took vantage of the fact that the Nazis’ attention was undoubtedly completely concentrated in that direction, and, in his obscure position on the floor, he reached up, opened the door and crept silently through. Outside, on the street, he made his way quickly to telephone and informed the city police of the intended march upon the town hall.

CHAPTER VIII

The Town Hall was situated in a section of Munich filled mainly with office buildings and shops. At the close of each day, the people streamed out of the buildings and formed an almost endless procession leading out of this neighborhood into the more residential districts where their homes were. By early evening therefore, for an area of a few squares around the town hall and the public park on which it faced, a dark silence descended upon this section of the city. It was as though the working people had put their offices and their shops to sleep before they themselves went home for the evening. Except for a few lights in the town hall itself—there were some municipal offices which remained open overnight—there was no sign of life about.

When Hitler came into view, surrounded by his own men and the involuntary recruits from the beer hall, there was nothing in the appearance of the deserted park and the imposing quiet of the town hall to arouse his suspicions.

His men were cautioned to march silently and they executed the order in unanimous obedience. As they approached within twenty feet of the town hall they were startled out of their order by a flood of lights directed upon them from the windows and the steps of the building.

To their amazement they could now make out a ready reception of police and militia stationed at strategic intervals in and around it.

Hitler stepped forward in authority and shouted, We have taken the government! Fall back and let us take the Town Hall!”

His statement seemed to be a great joke to the police and soldiers. They laughed, snickered, nudged one another.

Hitler’s dignity was offended. He was enraged, “Fire!” he shouted to his own men.

Faithfully the young Brown Shirts raised their guns their shoulders but before a trigger could be pulled, the trained militia opened fire on them with a storm of bullets. From then on the revolution was short lived.

In the first barrage of flying lead twenty young Nazis were shot down. In the rain of bullets that followed, many of their comrades joined them. There is no time for a Brown Shirt bullet to reply. In a few minutes the park had again drawn on its mantle of silence as the police, in quiet order, made wholesale arrests among the wounded as well as the more fortunate.

Heinrich, believing sincerely in the right of the National Socialist revolution, had no wish to protest arrest and waited among the men until the police arrived in their midst. With a show of outward nonchalance, he gave his name to an officer and resignedly submitted to arrest.

Although his manner was orderly, even courteous, at heart Heinrich was aghast by the discovery of an entirely new quality in his leader. During the short time it had taken for Hitler and his men to march into the square, attack and be seized, Heinrich had remained within a few feet of Hitler. Like the other men around him he had stiffened with pride and moved with alacrity at Hitler’s order to fire. He had been shocked at the quick succession of bullets fired by the soldiers but his sense of obedient loyalty was such that his first impulse had been not in the direction of self-defense but in the way of concern for his leader. His amazement was extraordinary therefore, when he perceived that Hitler, at the first shot, had dropped flat in his tracks and had continued to remain in that humiliating position as though he were dead. In his extreme attachment to Adolf Hitler, Heinrich had excused what seemed such a show of cowardice on the ground that Hitler himself realized his own importance to the National Socialist Party and therefore had seized upon whatever method of self-protection presented itself. He scolded himself unceremoniously for having entertained such an unworthy thought about his leader and dismissed the incident from his mind. His interest in Hitler’s safety, however, directed his eyes continuously to where he lay flat on the ground.

The restoration of his faith in Hitler’s courage did not last long. In another few minutes the police and the soldiers were closing in around the Brown Shirts to arrange for their arrest and it was at this point that Heinrich had observed Hitler as he jumped stealthily to his feet and sped away from the scene of his defeat behind the screen of loyal followers who remained to do penance for the treason he had perpetrated.

CHAPTER IX

Adolf Hitler was a fugitive, eluding the police for more than two weeks. He found refuge outside the city of Munich in the small house of Frau Schneider, a warm-hearted Jewess who had been left a widow by the war. In the quiet of her country home Hitler received letters from the city advising him of the progress the police were making in their search for him. Neither he nor Frau Schneider was really surprised therefore, when, in the gray afternoon of a late November day, there was a sharp knock at the door.

Frau Schneider, preparing dinner in the kitchen, was the first to hear it. She ran quietly upstairs and notified Hitler. Then, adjusting her house apron, patting a stray lock of hair into place, she came back downstairs and opened the door. At the sight of the police, she pretended to be startled.

The officers wasted no time in explaining their visit. “We want Adolf Hitler,” one of them said.

“Who?” Frau Schneider seemed stupid. “I don’t know who you mean.”

“You don’t?” One of the policemen sneered as he spoke. “We know he’s been hiding here since he ran away from Munich. Come now, stop wasting our time. Move aside and let us enter!”

Just then there was the sound—the very faint sound—of a whistle. To the policemen it might have seemed to be nothing more than the whistle of a bird. To Frau Schneider, however, it was the signal at Hitler had safely made his way out of the kitchen to the bushes behind the house. With a show of righteous indignation, she flung open wide her door. “You can search if you like,” she said, “but you won’t find anyone here.”

Hitler’s arrival back in Munich preceded that of the police who were searching for him by more than an hour. He was finally discovered by them in one of his usual beer hall haunts. His own inability to remain silent no matter what the circumstances was the case of his quick arrest.

Poised dramatically atop a table one evening, he was shouting with relief from his enforced silence of the past two weeks. “I’m not afraid of the police and I am not afraid of the government because I know I am right. And you, my friends, know and feel the right with me!” His voice soared so high now that it cracked. “They will see that Adolf Hitler laughs at them, they will know that the day of his triumph is near!”

There was the sound of a scuffle at the door and someone screamed, “Police! Police! They are coming!”

In a panic, Hitler scrambled down from the table and, like a trapped rat his glance scurried about for some possibility of escape. The entrance had filled with policemen by then and he quickly ran toward the bar and around it. Crouching behind it he listened as one of the officers snapped, “Where is he?”

He heard another policeman addressing the crowd. “Come on, where has he crawled?”

A group of people were undoubtedly enjoying themselves. Hitler could hear a few snickers but there was not one among them who gave away his hiding place.

The hall was silent as policemen moved about, searching under the tables and in the dark corners of the room. Then one of them stepped behind the bar. “Here is our hero!” he shouted triumphantly. He emerged in another minute into the center of the hall, dragging Hitler by the collar. Hitler whined, he pleaded to be turned loose. Good-naturedly the crowd laughed.

As the police pushed Hitler on ahead of them toward the exit, someone in the crowd cried out, “Don’t forget, Adolf, the day of your triumph is near!”

CHAPTER X

The German Republic treated its prisoner, Adolf Hitler, with the utmost consideration—even with extreme chivalry. Regarding him as no more serious than many other political criminals, the government presented Hitler with a comfortable enough cell at the Landsberg Prison and burdened him with no more taxing an occupation than meditation.

Through the early conscription of the services of the guard, Heines, Hitler was assured of comfort and convenience beyond the scope of the government’s imagination. It was through Heines’s efforts that Hitler was able to arrange for Heinrich to share his cell with him.

Hitler, the man of action, now became Hitler, the man of thought. Out of necessity the extreme and constant proximity of their daily existence reinforced the relationship between Hitler and Heinrich with fetters of steel. Hitler’s overwhelming domination, together with Heinrich’s growing weakness in the face of the personal magnetism of the older man made of the two men a strange fusion. When Hitler spoke—and he had all his time now in which to speak, as well as an audience which was necessarily confined to his presence—it was as though he regarded Heinrich as nothing more than a sounding board. Heinrich, on the other hand, as he listened did so with the feeling of a man who is repeating his thoughts to himself. Heinrich, therefore, became to Hitler that part of Hitler which listened as he spoke. And Hitler became to Heinrich the eloquent expression of his own ideas.

Long conversations were daily exchanged between the two men and if ever Heinrich had had any desire to extricate himself from Hitler’s vise–like hold over him, that desire was now slowly and surely blotted from his mind. The day had passed when Heinrich, with admirable strength of purpose, weighed in his mind the comparative value of an ideological conflict of theories as represented by the concepts of his father on the one hand and of Hitler on the other. Herr Schmidt and his liberal philosophy of life had been wiped from Heinrich’s consciousness by the force of Hitler’s determination almost as completely as a hailstorm wipes out the spring buds in a garden. There was another factor which contributed to the change in Heinrich’s attitude toward Hitler’s theories.

It was true that an intangible strength of personality in Hitler accounted, in the great part, for Heinrich’s inclination to the man. But Heinrich’s background and upbringing were two important bulwarks against a quick or complete capitulation to the tenets which Hitler preached. There were many times, in the beginning, when the young man would question the righteousness of these tenets and carefully weigh their respective merits against the beliefs with which he had been raised. In the end, when Heinrich went over wholeheartedly to Hitler’s way of thinking, it was the very inefficacy of the truths of his lifelong beliefs which propelled him forward. Heinrich, fresh from the war, faced his life with an unusual degree of optimism, considering the bitter effect that months of warfare had left upon him. After only a few months, the disappointment and bitter despair which he encountered in the helpless city of Munich tore again and again at his optimism and eventually demolished it entirely, leaving in its place a serious doubt as to whether his father’s benevolent counsel had not outlived its usefulness. It was, therefore, in this fertile field of despair that Hitler implanted his seeds of quick action to return the Fatherland to its former glories. Action in itself has ever been an excellent remedy for the ills of a frustrated nature.

After Heinrich’s first leap, which decision had been arrived at so cautiously, it then seemed as though he willfully closed his eyes and followed Hitler blindly. Politics, human relationships, even the minutest detail of a critical opinion—all were discussed be tween the two men within the walls of Landsberg Prison and in every case Heinrich bowed reverently before the views of Hitler. It remained for only one further incident to determine the finality and completion of Heinrich’s decision to follow Hitler.

The scene in the large cell at Landsberg Prison was a quiet one. It was early afternoon and the sun poured in cheerfully. Heinrich lay, half dozing, on the cot at one end of the room. Every few minutes he opened his eyes to look at Hitler, who was seated at his makeshift desk before one of the windows, writing busily. At one side of him on the desk there was a thick pile of papers and to this pile he continued to add each new sheet as he finished writing it. To the other side lay a fresh sheaf of paper into which he dug with alarming speed as he disposed of the sheet before him. Guided by an almost steady flow of thought, his hand moved forward and back, forward and back, in a kind of rhythm.

As Heinrich watched him, Hitler stopped writing suddenly and raised his head.

“Is anything wrong?” Heinrich asked anxiously.

“I’m stuck,” Hitler said. He designated the thick pile of papers. “Two hundred and sixty pages and I’m only half through. There are certain things I can’t express and others I dare not.”

“You’ve been working steadily,” Heinrich suggested. “Perhaps it would do you good to rest for a while.”

Hitler jumped at the phrase as an opportunity to persecute himself. “Rest? I can’t rest. In all the sleepless nights I have spent here, I have been obsessed by the desire to find out the real reason for my failure in Munich.”

Heinrich had discussed this same problem with Hitler many times in the past. His experience in the matter now dictated his answer.

“I thought,” he said, “we had decided the last time we spoke of this that the blame could be placed on the shoulders of the men who deserted you. Perhaps if those deserters had not . . .”

Hitler interrupted him impatiently. “That’s wrong,” he said, “all wrong. There’s something more we needed, Heinrich, and I think I know what that is. We were missing the support of the German people themselves.”

“But . . .” Heinrich began.

“There is no ‘but’,” Hitler said. "Instead, there is a feeling of law and order in the German people which must be fed if they are to agree to a new order. I know now what I wish I had known last November. Everything I do from now on will be entirely legal and by benefit of election.”

“But how will this be accomplished?” Heinrich asked.

Hitler ignored the question or else he did not hear it. He went on, “You can’t change the Teutonic psychology. They want a revolution but it must be within the bounds of law and constitution. All right, then, they shall have it.” He rose abruptly and started to pace back and forth. “I won’t make the same mistake again,” he vowed. “I’ve learned patience and I’ll wait—if necessary, for years.” His voice rose.

Experience had taught Heinrich that on such an occasion as this it was unnecessary for him to contribute anything to the conversation. He listened as Hitler continued.

"Meanwhile I shall prepare—carefully this time.

I’ll make use of every means of propaganda and organization. I’ll point out the misery of the German people, I’ll emphasize the government’s mistakes, I’ll throw their hunger, their sickness, their dissatisfaction in their faces until they can bear it no longer.” He stopped for a moment as his words conjured up in his mind a clear picture of what would happen. His voice grew quiet again and he said, “Then my day will come. They will see in me their saviour and they will beg me to lead them out of the chaos which I have painted for them. They will offer me power, they will beseech me to accept it. They’ll elect me.” His excitement brought beads of perspiration to his forehead. He wiped them away and went on, “Mark my words, Heinrich, I’ll get to the top legally and the day I do will mark the death of the Republic and the birth of a new, a greater Reich.”

Heinrich could not resist a question, “But the Constitution?”

Hitler laughed. “You’re an incurable Teuton. Constitution? What is it but a scrap of paper? I’ll tear it up—quite legally, you understand. Every good German knows that Luther said, ‘Be submissive to the government.’ In this case I will be the government, legally instituted and the people will have no choice but to submit!”

At that moment there was the sound of a key turning in the lock of the iron door at the far end of the cell. The door was pushed open and Heines, the guard, entered. He was a sturdily built young man with a predominantly weak chin and a full, sensual mouth. In the early days of their confinement, with his usual perspicacity Hitler had observed the obvious attraction which Heinrich held for this slow-witted and manifestly homosexual young man. Proceeding on the theory that a man like Heines could best be reached through the object of his affection, he had consistently dangled Heinrich before the other’s eyes as the constant reminder of a possible reward for any service Heines might perform. At the same time, precluding any intelligence on the part of Heinrich in a matter of this nature, he counseled him from time to time.

“There is only one way to treat that kind of man,” he would say. “Allow him to want you without ever giving in to him. He must be made to feel the barrier of your superiority. Give him orders. Don’t count on his intelligence, but rely rather upon his instincts.”

Heinrich’s response to this counsel was always, in effect, the same. “I understand. If you want power, you need men. It is their number and not their quality which counts.”

Now, as Heines made his way respectfully into the cell, he perfunctorily addressed Hitler. “Excuse me for interrupting, Herr Hitler,” he said humbly, “but there are visitors for Heinrich.”

“Visitors?” Hitler seemed interested. “Who are they?”

Heinrich looked up in surprise at this unusual news. He sat upright on the cot and motioned Heines to bring him the prison pass upon which the names of the visitors were customarily written. He read the identity of the persons who were waiting for him and flushed in acute embarrassment.

“It’s my brother,” he explained to Hitler. Then he added hesitantly, “And a girl.”

Hitler looked at him curiously. “A girl? Your girl?”

Heinrich nodded affirmatively.

“Are you engaged?”

Heinrich’s face flushed again. “Yes, I suppose we are—or at least we were.”

Hitler assumed an air of deep personal injury. “But, Heinrich,” he said, “why haven’t you told me about her?”

Heinrich’s answer was a mixture of defensive rationalization and optimistic theorizing. “You yourself have said so many times that a woman splits a man’s allegiance—that a man must have only one love. It didn’t occur to me . . .”

Before Heinrich could go any farther, Hitler interrupted. “That’s true, Heinrich,” he said. “We have only one love.” He sighed and thought for a moment, hen he continued, ‘‘Heinrich, you know I wouldn’t ask you to do anything that I myself am not prepared do.” He hesitated, then he went on, “You know I am dedicated to a job—to a cause, really.” He came over to Heinrich’s side with measured steps and gazed him intently. “And you are too, Heinrich.”

Hitler reached down for the visitors’ pass which Heinrich handed to him. He read the name aloud, Ilsa Mendelsohn . . . Mendelsohn . . . Jewess?” His voice was sharp.

"Yes,” Heinrich said quietly.

Hitler’s fury was uncontrollable. “You, who call yourself a true German descendant of the glorious Teutons—you can do this thing? You can bring a Jew under our very roof? How often must I tell you that no Jew can ever be a German?”

Heinrich protested in self—defense. “I didn’t bring here,” he said.

“Then send her away!” Hitler shrieked. “Get rid of her immediately.”

Heinrich hesitated. “I’m a little embarrassed,” he explained. “After all, she must still consider herself engaged to me . . . I haven’t told her . . .”

“Then go and tell her now,” Hitler snapped. Heinrich did not respond.

“You are afraid! Then you still love her?” Heinrich answered in a low voice. “In a way,” he said.

Hitler reacted violently to this admission. "There is no love but love of our cause where my lieutenants are concerned! he stormed. “There is no room for a girl in the heart of a man who has a job to do. I demand that you get rid of this girl!”

Had Hitler stopped at this point, the bond between the two men might have been broken forever. For the first time in the history of their long association Heinrich, with the aid of Hitler’s tempestuous anger, was able to stand off and view both himself and his oppressor with detached sagacity. By the very strength of his fury Hitler had weakened the case against Ilsa for, in Heinrich’s mind, she now stood helpless and unprotected in the path of a ruthless tyrant who wished to destroy her. He moved perceptibly away from Hitler and chivalrously began to defend not the remote Jewess of Hitler’s manufacture, but the girl he loved. At the same moment Hitler must have guessed something of Heinrich’s decision and, with a worried rush to undo the damage he had caused, he began again, this time in a voice soft and understanding.

“We’ve come a long way together, Heinrich, you and I. Are you going to desert me now for a girl?” He sat down beside Heinrich and nodded his head in a sorrowful gesture of despair. “I’m genuinely attached to you, Heinrich. I gave you my whole confidence. It’s a long way to the top and a lonely one. Please stay with me to help me reach it.”

With genuine sympathy Heinrich answered him immediately. “If you really want me, only death can stop me.”

Hitler’s sigh was more from relief than from any emotional strain. “You know I want you,” he said, “You’ve been with me in my distress and it’s only right for you to be with me in my triumph.” “Whatever you wish,” Heinrich assured him. Hitler perceived that the struggle was won but he felt the need for further reassurance. He spoke coldly now. “If ever you prove yourself unworthy, Heinrich, just warn you that, much as I love you, I will tear you out of my heart as I now ask you to tear out of your heart all feeling for this girl. Now you must decide—is it to be me or is it to be the girl?”

Heinrich answered promptly and solemnly, “You.” Hitler smiled warmly. “I knew you wouldn’t fail me. I would have sworn for your loyalty.” He placed his hand affectionately over Heinrich’s. “Now,” he said, “you had better go on out and see her.”

CHAPTER XI

Ilsa and Fritz had agreed willingly to go to Landsberg Prison to see Heinrich. When the visit was suggested to them by Herr Schmidt, the purpose behind it was a simple one. Heinrich might be in need of help, reasoned Herr Schmidt, and perhaps he was unwilling to ask for it.

To the people in Gronau the news of Heinrich’s arrest and imprisonment came as a great shock. After almost a full year of worry over Heinrich’s silence and after many fruitless attempts to find his son, there came to Herr Schmidt one late November day, in the regular course of his journalistic activities, a startling dispatch from Munich.

“… . and one Heinrich Schmidt, etc., etc., etc., leaders in the revolutionary Nazi putsch to overthrow the government, have been arrested and sent to Landsberg Prison,” it read.

It was, therefore, in the Zeitung itself that the townspeople of Gronau read with dismay of Heinrich’s disgrace. Although Doctor Mendelsohn, Pastor Miller and a few other close friends of Herr Schmidt had suggested to him that he withhold this news from the columns of his newspaper, Herr Schmidt had recoiled from the idea. In his own honest way he ran the article together with the other news of the day.

The question which bothered Herr Schmidt most was not the actual fact of Heinrich’s imprisonment so much as the fundamental reason behind Heinrich’s association with political agitators. Heinrich’s position appeared so incongruous to his father that the older man was inclined to suspect a recurrence of the shell-shock his son had suffered during the war. In genuine fear for Heinrich’s mental and physical health, therefore, he prevailed upon Fritz and Ilsa to pay Heinrich a visit.

In the musty reception room at Landsberg Prison the two young people now sat anxiously awaiting Heinrich’s appearance. To both of them their present commission was of far greater importance than their own personal feelings in the matter. Their concern over Heinrich’s questionable health showed in their worried young faces. Fritz nervously rearranged some of the packages of food they had brought with them while Ilsa directed him.

“Oh Fritz, do be careful of my beautiful cake! I’d weep if anything happened to it,” she said.

Fritz rescued the cake from under the other boxes which were filled with cheeses, sausages and pies. He placed it in a position of honor, all by itself. “There,” he breathed more easily.

Ilsa ran her hand over her hair once again and smoothed her skirt.

“I’d advise you to relax, young lady,” cautioned Fritz, “or that dress will be worn to a frazzle. I give you my word that there’s not a wrinkle left within five steps of you.”

Ilsa, whose eyes were rooted to the doorway, saw Heinrich first. He entered and stood before them, stiff and embarrassed.

“Heinrich!” she called. Her cry startled Fritz, who turned quickly toward his brother and, in his excitement, upset his careful geometric arrangement of the gift boxes. They clattered noisily to the floor—even to the last of them which contained the highly prized cake.

Ilsa and Fritz rushed headlong toward Heinrich with the obvious purpose of embracing him warmly. To their amazement, Heinrich stiffened perceptibly.

For one brief moment the two young people reacted as though they had been slapped in the face. Then one and the same thought surged through their minds —Heinrich had lost his reason! The shell-shock had been really serious after all!

Ilsa managed to speak first. “Heinrich,” she said, “we are so happy to see you!”

“We were so worried,” Fritz added.

Heinrich remained motionless and stared at them coldly. “Save your sentimentality,” he said. His voice was icy. “I’m here, I wish to be here, I am proud to be here.

Ilsa’s eyes filled with a rush of sympathetic tears. “Heinrich,” she said softly, “I only meant …”

Fritz eyed his brother cautiously, critically. “You’re not glad to see us, Heinrich? Have you been feeling well?” He touched his own head significantly. “You do recognize us, don’t you?”

Heinrich’s attention at that moment was caught by the figure of Hitler, who had appeared quietly in the frame of the door on the opposite side of the room. His presence seemed to lend a new impetus to Heinrich’s annoyance. “I never want to see either one of you again,” he said, angrily.

Ilsa was speechless. Fritz, too, for a moment could say nothing. Then he recovered himself a little.

“Oh, my God, Heinrich, you’ve gone crazy! You’ve gone crazy!”

Heinrich’s reply was still brutally cold. “I have not gone crazy. I’ve merely learned what it means to be a true German. If you will both be good enough to leave . . .

“What do you mean?” Ilsa cried. “We’re both Germans, too.”

Heinrich snarled back at her. “You’re a Jew! he shouted. “A Jew can never be a German. You are our enemies.”

Hitler, standing in the open doorway, smiled his approval.

Ilsa’s astonishment turned to fury. “How dare you?” she demanded. “My brothers died for Germany.”

This simple statement of what Heinrich himself knew to be fact stopped for a moment his bitter invective. Hitler, reading defeat of his purpose in the prolongation of Heinrich’s bewilderment, strode quickly into the room.

“Don’t lower yourself by arguing with a Jew, Heinrich,” he advised.

Unconsciously Ilsa took a step back as Hitler approached them. It might have been a subconscious wave of revulsion at his presence and a fear of contamination.

“Who is this man? What has he to do with us, Heinrich?” she wanted to know.

“He is our leader,” Heinrich replied proudly. “It is he who will save Germany. And you are not fit to stand in his presence, you Jew!”

Ilsa spoke fiercely, almost savagely, now to Heinrich. “So, I’m not fit! We grew up together, you and I. You were as close to us as you were to your own people. Now you say we’re not Germans. You choose to throw away your manliness and your honor because this—” she indicated Hitler, “this beer hall agitator tells you to!”

Partly in anger, partly in a desire to impress Hitler, Heinrich leaped toward Ilsa and clapped his hand over her mouth.

“Hold your tongue!” he shouted. “You’re not good enough to mention his name. I’ve told you I never want to see you again and I mean it! You and your whole Jewish family! Now get out!” He pushed her away with such force that she would have been thrown to the floor if Fritz had not come to her rescue.

Fritz was blind with rage. “You swine!” he yelled. He grabbed Heinrich by the shirt-front and hit him squarely on the chin, so hard a blow that Heinrich staggered and went down.

Ilsa screamed with horror and ran weeping from the room.

Hitler, in a paroxysm of fear for his own person, ran through the other doorway, shrieking hysterically, “Warden! Heines! Warden! Help—they’ve killed Heinrich! Get that girl! Help!” He scurried away in the manner of a frightened rabbit and arrived quickly in the safety of his own cell.

He was still pacing nervously up and down a few minutes later when Heinrich was brought in. “How are you?” he asked, anxiously. “I was afraid he had killed you.”

Heinrich sat down heavily on his cot and rested his head in his hands. “I’m all right. It was nothing,” he said quietly.

Hitler sat down beside him. “I was proud of you, Heinrich. You should be glad she came. It was your great opportunity to tell a Jew face to face how you feel.”

Heines came in, carrying the packages of foodstuff which had been left in the reception room. Heinrich wearily motioned Hitler to open them and Hitler did so vigorously. The various items contained therein surprised and pleased him enormously and he sampled a few of them with great relish. Heinrich lay his head back on the pillow with complete disinterest.

Hitler observed this and quickly made a move to lessen Heinrich’s misery. “Pull yourself together,” he advised. His voice swelled with the crescendo of a priest chanting a litany. “In the glorious chronicle of our German heroes, when a man is involved in a choice between his heart and his country, his heart must be trod underfoot and his country must rise victorious.”

Heinrich answered in a colorless voice. “A man can do many things for the sake of his country but he cannot control his suffering.”

*        *         *        *         *

Fritz found Ilsa waiting for him outside the prison gates. Her eyes were tear-stained and red but her manner was quiet again.

Fritz spoke first. “We passed a little park on our way here,” he said. “Let’s wait there until it is time for our train. It will be better than sitting in the station.”

Ilsa agreed docilely. They walked a few squares and came to the benches which encircled the park. There was a little snow on the ground and the wind stirred through the bare branches of the trees. It is late afternoon and the park was deserted as they made their way to one of the benches and sat down. Fritz faced Ilsa and took her hands in his. “Ilschen, darling,” he said softly, “you must believe me. It is dreadful and I wouldn’t have had it happen for the world. But we must shake it off.”

“What has changed him, Fritz? What has happened to him inside to make him talk that way?” Fritz spoke seriously as he answered. “I would have said it was shell-shock if we hadn’t seen Hitler.” Ilsa sighed. “But Heinrich loved me so. He told me he needed me.”

Fritz looked at Ilsa inquiringly. “Tell me, Ilsa, do you love him? I must know.” He turned her face him. “I mean in your heart—did you really love Heinrich and want to marry him?”

Ilsa’s glance dropped. “I was sorry for him, Fritz, I'd have done anything to help Heinrich.”

“But did you love him, really, or was it sympathy?” “No, Fritzschen, no; it was you all the time. But had promised Heinrich—and when he came back from the war so sick at heart …” she began to sob softly and covered her face with her hands.

Fritz held her in his arms and neither of them spoke for a minute. Then he said, solemnly, “It is right, Ilsa, the way it is. It is right. You belong to me.

Ilsa drew closer to Fritz. “It frightens me,” she said. “Do you think they can ever get into power?”

Fritz laughed. “Here in Germany? How could they? They don’t even make sense.”

Ilsa shuddered. “Those terrible things they said about the Jews.”

Fritz suddenly held her tight. “Ilschen,” he said excitedly. “Do you realize what today means? It’s really wonderful!”

“Wonderful? Fritz, it’s been horrible—not wonderful.”

“But you’re free now, darling,” Fritz cried. “You won’t marry Heinrich now—you’ll marry me. Oh, I’ve loved you so long without any hope.”

“In my heart, Fritz, it was always you.”

“My darling Ilsa!”

Ilsa sat back slowly. Her voice was thoughtful and calm now. “Even though I love you, Fritz,” she said. “I can’t marry you.”

“But why?”

“Because I’m a Jewess,” she said simply.

Fritz’s temper flared. “Heinrich! Heinrich and his insults! Don’t ever think of it again! I must forbid you to!”

“Try to understand, Fritz. Don’t you see how difficult it will be for you to live with me?”

“Darling, how very wrong you are,” Fritz replied. “It would be much more difficult for me to live without you.”

“Fritz,” Ilsa said. “Look at me.” Fritz did so. “Doesn’t it matter to you at all that I am a Jewess?”

“The only thing that matters to me is that you will be my wife.”

Ilsa leaned over toward Fritz and kissed him gently. It was a long kiss and it contained all of the unhappiness of their past as well as the happiness of their present and future.

After a short silence, Ilsa spoke. “Fritz, darling,” she said, “I’m terribly happy that we came here today. I don’t mind anything that happened.”

Fritz tightened his clasp. “You won’t have to be frightened about anything any more, Ilschen,” he said. “I’ll always be here to take care of you.” They embraced again.

Then Ilsa said, “We’re not going to think of Heinrich any more. And we’re not going to tell your father the truth about today. In fact,” she announced, “we’re going to lie about it, if necessary.”

Fritz nodded, “You’re a wise little girl Ilsa. I think you’re quite right and I think God will be on our side in our difficulties.”

CHAPTER XII

Life went on in prison, with Hitler, Heinrich and Heines. Hitler’s flow of speech never ceased. Like a spider he wove his net of words around the two younger men; building castles in the air; promising fame and power to each of them, when the moment came when he reached his goal.

“The foundation of a new world is being laid here,” he told them. “Right here, in this prison. I won’t forget those who stick to me in the days of my humiliation. I shall need men like you. For positions of power and importance. Just prove to me that you are loyal and your futures are assured. I know that the people outside are still with me and for me and that I am the one they look to save them right at the brink of the abyss. The other parties are doing nothing for them. I am the ‘Man of the Hour,’—the words that I speak to them are not mere theories, but real, practical, workable facts. I talk to a man not through his ears but through his heart. I get down into the very depths of his being and stir him as he was never stirred before. I do not appear before him as one upon a higher plane, dressed in fine clothes and surrounded with luxury; I come to him as a plain man, like himself and if I had one million men for my audience, each one of the million would feel that I was talking only to him, because all that I say fits him and his life exactly as if I had personally lived with him and knew his precise situations, problems and aims.”

Heines, a man with little intelligence and no imagination, reacted in a dull, incomprehensive way.

“Do you want me, Herr Hitler,” he asked, a little scared, “to resign my post when you leave here and follow you?”

Hitler shook his head. “No, I want you to stay here. Or, if possible, get in the army. Work for the Nazi idea. I shall need men everywhere. The army officers won’t do you any harm. Just maintain that you are a patriot and against the rotten state of socialists, communists, and democrats. The officers don’t like the upstarts of the Government, anyway.”

Heines objected, stuttering, “The army? I don’t know; it means hard service, strict discipline and no future.”

Hitler, controlling his contempt and exasperation at this outburst of cowardice and weakness, exploded. “You shall not stay there forever, only for the time of our preparation.” Suddenly, he asked, “Where are you from, Heines?”

“Breslau.”

“Very good. In due time I’ll make you president of the police in Breslau. If your faithfulness prevails and you stick to me, maybe you’ll become even governor of the whole province of Silesia. I shall need strong men in this Polish—Jewish—Catholic corner of the Reich,—men who can use an iron broom and sweep clean and ruthlessly.”

Heines beamed. The idea of becoming governor of Silesia was so enormously flattering, he was ready and eager to promise and do anything. From that moment on, he became all the more solicitous and lush in his attentions—providing anything his two pet prisoners wished. In fact, the lives of Hitler and Heinrich, in the “fortress” began to be more a sojourn in a summer resort than servitude in prison.

Hitler, much as he enjoyed his power over Heines, did not like to talk in his presence of topics that went too far beyond this simpleton’s horizon. He was annoyed by Heines’ lack of knowledge and comprehension, and he therefore developed his daring theories on foreign policy, religion and racial theories only when alone with Heinrich.

Particularly was he vitriolic against the Jews and the Church. Deep-rooted in the mind of Adolf Hitler was the conviction that it was necessary to make the people believe that it was the Jews who financed all Communist uprisings. And that largely through the pro-Communist sentiments of the police, particularly in Berlin (the vice-president of the police bureau there being a Jew), that the Communists had practically taken the city and that thus Berlin had become a recognized Red center.

“When I come into power,” Hitler told Heinrich, “none but pure Aryans shall be considered Germans and allowed to be citizens. No Jew can ever be a member of the nation. I shall go further and send my thousands of followers forth to do likewise and shout from one end of Germany to the other, ‘Juda Verrecke’ (‘Down with the Jews’). For we must make them believe there can be no good Jew. You will see, Heinrich,” he continued, in a still more violent burst of hatred, his face contorting, and the blood rushing to his temples, swelling the veins to bursting. “I shall drive out all the six hundred thousand Jews now swarming this Empire and sucking its blood. I shall make them believe,” he continued to shout, “that the true enemy of the world today is the Jew, the cause of all the world’s misery. Only through radical extinction of this alien part of German blood can the future of our people be made truly secure. I look forward to the day when not a single Jew will survive in the Reich; and see here, Heinrich,” he interjected, “look,” reading from his manuscript, the title to which he had given Mein Kampf (My Fight), “see what I say here,” and he read from a pencil-written page, ‘The black-haired Jew boy lurks for hours, his face set in a Satanic leer, waiting for the ignorant, innocent girl whom he will defile with his blood.’ I hate, I despise a Jew. He is unfit to be a member of any civilized society. One Jewish child will contaminate a whole school. The Jews work only for personal profit, and in their minds, money is their chief aim. Jews are the international plague. Jews are racial not national. They will never have the feeling of the Fatherland because they have never had a country of their own. Jews have only one fear—physical fear. They are cowards, and a coward is always cruel. In the Chekh, in Moscow, the Jews are the most inhumanly cruel henchmen of the Soviet’s gallows. We are only giving them the same medicine that they give to us; it was they who were the originators of this medicine. The Talmud, the Jewish Bible, teaches that anyone who is not a Jew is inhuman, is a beast against whom any cheating or destruction is allowed and encouraged. The Communist system in Russia is their own invention; so here in Germany, we will apply it to them, merely using their own methods. When we have a battle with Communists and they wound our members, we Nazis cannot go to hospitals because the majority of the doctors are Jews, so we have to do without medical aid, and many of our comrades suffer gangrene and amputations.

“The slogan of our Storm Troops shall be ‘Clear the Streets for the Brown Battalions.’ Also, ‘Germany awake, perish the Jew.’

“Yes,” he continued violently, “Jews are our misfortune; there are too many of them. Jews are not people like the rest of us. Every one of us knows that the best businesses are taken by them, not honestly, but by stealth and fraud.”

He paused for a second breath, then continued: “The strength of race and the purity of blood we must foster by any and by every means. Whatever serves this end is good and permissible. The chief source and origin of all human, spiritual and moral qualities is the blood in which are contained the characteristics of the race. The chief objective shall be to develop racial characteristics, and to fill the soul with a burning love for its own race, as the highest good. The origin and highest standard of every system of government is the racial instinct. The Jewish religion is the only national religion; for a Jew can never belong to the Christian Church, and a Christian can never be a member of the Jewish nation. And it is religion, my dear Heinrich, that is the means by which certain international powers keep hold of the nations. All European religions are based on the Jewish idea of God. Catholicism, Protestantism, orthodox religions; are all the same. They prevent the people from the consideration of their racial and national obligations. They demand from us an allegiance to their international God, before the duty toward our people. The Jew, Christ, crucified by the Jews, shall not rule us, who are Aryans. We must change that idea. Jesus Christ, hereafter, shall be represented as an anti-Semite. We shall show how Jesus had to struggle against Jewish egotism—for the kingdom of love, honor, purity and strength.” 

It was then that Hitler disclosed his true feeling about religion. Violent was his attitude toward the Church—going back to the time when his Nazi Party was first noticed, and was bitterly assailed by the bishops and priests belonging to the Center Party, who launched a counter attack against Hitler, excommunicating all Nazis, even refusing them Christian burial. This, and more, became so magnified and so rankled in the mind of Hitler during his term in prison, as completely to overwhelm him with the thirst for vengeance. And as he told Heinrich: “Some day, I will compel every Catholic Nazi to choose between the Church and the Party, and if they do not choose the Party, I shall throw them out of our ranks. I prophesy that the day will come when Christianity will be overthrown and a new German Church established, without a pope, even without a Bible; and Luther, if he could be with us, would give us his blessing. Yes, my dear Heinrich, I have no stupid and sentimental adherence to the phantoms and myths of the Pope, and the Bible. I am free to make my own laws; to project my own principles; to live my own life, unhampered, unrestricted by any so-called ruler, or moral bans. And it is the only way a man can ever reach the higher state of manhood; to be a thinking power unto himself; without a thought or a worry as to the reactions of others or whether or not they agree or disagree with him. We must conduct a war—not against this or that religion, but against all Christianity. We must frighten the people from all old alien beliefs, and, hereafter, when they speak of believing in God, they will mean believing in the modern God. The Bible will no longer be the ethical guide of the German people.”

His face glowed. He became fairly drunk with his own egotism.

“All great German leaders, artists, and thinkers have already repudiated the old Christianity,” he airily continued. “The world, instead of opposing modern dictatorship, should oppose the Church dictatorship. The watchword of the hour is not the Word of God, nor ‘humanism,’ but ‘race’ and ‘Germany.’ German Protestantism is inimical to the State. The Confessional Church shows too much sympathy to the Catholic Church. Christianity is an old philosophy that has been fading for centuries, and will soon vanish from our era. We will cast off the shackles of creeds and denominations, because we believe in serving God through deeds rather than prostration on our knees and mechanical repetition of dogma. The service of our people to the State, for their lives and for the freedom of the Fatherland is the only real God worship. The individual lives only through and for the State. Whatever rights he may exercise are merely conceded to him by the State. Religion must be subordinate to respect, and must be adapted to it. National Socialism is Christianity of itself. A good National-Socialist is always a good Christian. Hereafter, we will tie God up only with Germany. God gave us life by means of German parents. He gave us bread by means of German soil. Thus, blood, bread and soil, people and Homeland are God’s hand from which we receive all that we have, and are what we are. By holding fast to God’s hand, we hold fast to the German Homeland and become God’s people, and none of this is taught in churches of the old order, so they must be dissolved.”

And then, visibly puffed with pride because he was to have a hand in creating a new Christ and to decide for millions of the Empire just how they might or might not in future worship their God, he proceeded with a still greater assumption of profundity.

‘‘I propose that we do away with all of the old denominations, strip the entire religious order, particularly the German Confessional Church.

“We will call the new denomination the ‘National Church,’ and make the new National Church the center of all German worship and all religion. These new German-Christians will be the only group to receive Government support. And in this new German National Church will be preached an entire new religion which we will call ‘German-God Experience.’ “Religious instruction must be connected only with the course of the German year. Periods for religious instruction must be devoted only to German hymns and religious works of German authors. Only selected texts and songs must be learned.

“Only the vital relation between Christ and the German National—Socialist individual shall be developed, that will enable him to fulfill his obligations to the Fatherland.

“All teachings of Bible stories, from the Old Testament, are to be discontinued.

“We must drive out all the old preachers and organize an entirely new order to be known as ‘The League of Protestant Preachers of the Third Reich.’ Any Protestant clergyman can belong to this Association, upon oath that he will be a complete ‘German-Christian’ and a complete ‘National Socialist.’ The new German Christians will in time drive every supporter of the Confessional Church from official positions in the Reich. We will do away with all denominations. In churches and in schools and organizations, National Commercial Schools shall be known, hereafter, as National Philosophical Schools. I propose further that we establish a new bureau called ‘Kultur Kampf’ to wage a war against churches and to take out all present preachers, and to put in only preachers who will teach the new German-God Experience. Churches have always been the center of all religious strife. Protestantism has ceased to be true Protestantism, because it has become a comrade in arms with the Catholic Church and it has refused to carry on our fight against Rome, the Papal State that has no right to attempt to interfere in our politics.

Heinrich was visibly taken aback. His eyes popped in astonishment; he found it difficult to take in all the vehemence of Hitler’s tirade. He stuttered, “If you say so, it must be true.”

And more and more, Heinrich realized that he could not turn back; that the road ahead would lead him farther and farther away from Gronau, from his father and all former associates; for if he was to be a true disciple of Hitler, he must become an automaton, wholly without sentiment and without feeling; completely dedicating himself to Hitler, to be his utter and abject slave. To all that Hitler might say upon any subject, it was for Heinrich merely to nod in assent, like a dumb animal, rather than as a thinking man. Long since he had lost all power to think for himself. In fact, it became Heinrich’s province only to listen—seldom to speak. All silences were broken by Hitler. Hitler, alone, did whatever thinking there was to be done for these, his dupes—Heinrich and Heines.

During this interlude of his confinement, Hitler was far from idle. He learned, from outside, of the disloyalty and, in many instances, of the complete desertion of his fellow-conspirators. Those fortunate enough to escape trial set themselves up as chieftains of the other newly-created parties, abandoning the Nazi emblem. Those, though actual participants in the putsch at the time of Hitler’s arrest, were dealt with leniently by the Republic.

Hitler continued to hear of the gradual crumbling and disintegration of his Party. In great alarm, he asked his former lieutenants, Hermann Goering and Ernst Roehm, to visit him.

Because of the unholy attitude of the homosexual Heines, he enjoyed increasing freedom within the prison walls, and was free to plot and plant at will.

Gradually Hitler’s cohorts returned to him—a tribute to the force of his leadership and proof positive of his dominant personality. One, Alfred Rosenberg, then came upon the scene.

Rosenberg, a man of scholarly attainments, gave to the Hitler movement dignity it never before enjoyed, the lack of which had always proved an enormous handicap. Rosenberg, with some social standing, had contacts with the so-called intelligentsia; and it was Rosenberg, acting under Hitler’s guidance, who attempted the re-organization of the Nazi Party during the period of the latter’s prison confinement. Rosenberg believed Hitler sincere in his claim that all he strove for was a new-born Fatherland, regardless of politics, where the German people might dwell in peace, prosperity and happiness; that his only object in repudiating the Versailles Treaty and building up the armed forces of Germany to pre-war strength was that Germany might not be unprotected and helpless before aggressor nations; that because the time would surely come when surrounding powers might mobilize for attack upon the Fatherland and find the German people completely at their mercy. This, and other Hitler speeches had the desired effect.

Rosenberg was impressed with Hitler’s obvious sincerity and believed him to be a true patriot, inspired by love of country. Rosenberg, though born a Russian, became a naturalized German. His hatred of the Communists who took over his country was as intense as Hitler’s. Rosenberg became the only man Hitler looked up to, not because he was a thinker; but particularly because of Rosenberg’s complete concurrence with him in his antagonism to the Versailles Treaty. Rosenberg thought the Treaty, from its inception, was as fraudulent as it was tyrannical. Tyrannical because it was meant to suffocate Germany. Fraudulent because one of the world’s great powers could not be summarily snuffed out; nor the terms of the Treaty be kept.

CHAPTER XIII

The day arrived when Adolf Hitler was released from prison. The date, December 20, 1924.

The German Republic had by that time gotten over the child–sickness of a new state. Revolts, rebellions, and unrest had subsided. Violent radical uprisings of the Rightists and Leftists had been practically suppressed.

Under a truly democratic government, comprising the more conservative and constructive elements of Nationalists, Democrats and Socialists, with the Catholics as a decisive center, the country had slowly but steadily recuperated from the wounds of the World War, and was striving toward a peaceful and prosperous future. Despite the violent attempts of Communists and their vicious propaganda on the one side and the reorganized National Socialistic Party on the other, the average German remained faithful to his government and the Weimar Constitution. The populace still remembered that Germany was left a heap of ruins after the war and appreciated fully what the Government in power had accomplished.

The last remainders of war—psychosis and hatred among the European nations began to diminish. Germany became a member of the League of Nations. The united efforts of peace–minded statesmen: Stresemann, of Germany, Briand of France, MacDonald of England, and Kellogg of America, bore visible fruit. The onerous terms of the Versailles Treaty were gradually relaxed. The humiliating occupation of the Rhineland was terminated in mutual understanding. The Dawes and then the Young Plan replaced the reparation payments; loans and raw material began to flow in, while German-manufactured goods found open markets in formerly antagonistic countries. A natural development set in. Germany became a full member of the great family of nations. The restrictions imposed on her, in the matter of rearmament, were being minimized by convoking disarmament conferences. The Locarno Treaty secured her Western border.

Under such improved conditions, Germany had become poor ground for radical movements. Neither Communists nor Nazis were materially successful in recruiting new members; Germans, as individuals, are not revolutionary. They don’t believe in change merely for the sake of change. The laborers have work and can maintain a satisfactory though not luxurious life and are satisfied. The middle class and those in trade make a decent living. Taxes are high, yet bearable, in view of the fact that only a small though efficient army and navy need be supported.

It would now appear that Hitler had faded out of the public’s consciousness. His movement at this particular moment seemed doomed. A newspaper called him “A fool maddened by imprisonment.” But there remained the indomitable Hitler nerve, the transcendent Hitler audacity and impudence. This man, who in the face of the most ignominious defeat, refused to be defeated. Every failure left him with a stronger determination to succeed. New strategies were evolved. New worlds loomed up to conquer. His strategy, while in prison, in capitalizing upon the quarrels of his lieutenants and unifying them under his own dominant leadership, had been successful. He shook himself free of all the shackles of the past, put down all former handicaps and setbacks and prepared to start afresh. From the very beginning, he would build an entirely new Nazi party. He made Rosenberg the editor-in-chief of his newspaper, over which he had now regained control. Fiery blasts of Nazi propaganda again would be shot out from the presses of the Der Volkischer Beobachter.

On February 27, 1925, Hitler called his first mass meeting since his release from prison. His speech to his lieutenants was terrific in its intensity. He demanded that they forget their personal quarrels. There was to be but one Cause, but one leader, but one loyalty. Then, turbulently, he proclaimed his new policies, new aims, new mountains to move.

His speech was greeted with tumultuous applause. His magic voice had again stirred his listeners to their depths. They rallied and pledged undying loyalty to their “Fuehrer” and once more Hitler set himself up on the heights, as the one and only Caesar.

Berlin authorities became alarmed. They took measures to suppress Hitler, to deny him permits for further speeches. Hitler, however, took diverse means to offset this antagonism by enlisting the sympathy of those who stood in dread of the Communist menace. His diatribes became all the more intense against the Communists thereby attracting enough attention to become so favorable that he began to be considered a “necessary evil.”

Onward, Hitler marched to re-establish and strengthen his Nazi ranks, but there continued to be innumerable obstacles. Times there were when he had no money to pay for lecture halls or printing, yet greater and greater became his dreams of conquest; his personal grandeur complex intensified with each passing day.

Then Hitler began to distrust all of those about him.

“From now on, I go my way alone,” he was heard to say. “One party, one single party and I shall be it. I, alone. I am the ‘Fuehrer.’ I am Hitler; a man endowed with super-human strength. My faith and confidence in myself, my formula, will enable me eventually to rule the Empire.”

On all sides there were those who continued to ridicule and underrate Hitler. But he kept on with his speeches and propaganda to the people through the medium of his newspaper, thus driving his enemies into the open—and they attacked him with ever increasing violence, especially the Jews and the religious press.

Then came a crisis in the new Bavarian government. Munich and Berlin were almost at war. Hitler quickly contacted General von Ludendorff and completely captured the old general’s imagination, enlisting his enthusiasm for his staggering idea to blast the Treaty of Versailles. Also to drive against the Jews, creating a new Germany for the Germans. Von Ludendorff succumbed to this dramatic idea, granting Hitler permission to use his name, although he, at this time, was the virtual master of the army. With such tremendous backing, Hitler became a veritable Napoleon giving his movement its greatest impetus. Thousands of new members were added to his Nazi party, as well as to the ranks of his Storm Troopers. Hitler’s slogan now was: “Save the Sinking World.” At this stage, Hitler planned a Nazi revolution against the Jews and a complete assault upon every other existing German political force. The Jewish press retaliated, attacking him violently: printing pictures of Nazis stripped naked, painted black and crowned with horns; playing them up as horrible examples of rowdyism, graft, lechery and treason. To these attacks, Hitler replied:

“Any morning when I don’t see myself vilified in the Jewish press, I blame myself for not being sufficiently active as a Nazi.”

Hitler’s activities now swung over to Coburg. A meeting was being held there by the Marxian Socialists. Hitler rushed in with his seven hundred S. A.’s and, ignoring the police, struck up his brass band and with Swastika banners flying, charged the Marxian group, smashing heads, beating down all resistance, breaking up the meeting and routing the audience. Next, he faced hundreds of Communists any of whom would kill him, and for fifteen minutes a furious free for all battle was fought with cobblestones, fists and clubs.

Hitler’s forces were victorious. His stormy entrance into Coburg created great excitement and that night Hitler held his own meeting, packing the hall, where he delivered another terrific, hurricane speech, sweeping the audience off its feet and leaving them cheering him to the rafters.

All through that night, Hitler continued to attack the Communists and wreck their headquarters beyond rehabilitation. Coburg was amazed that the Communist menace so threatening to them had been so completely annihilated. Coburg citizens were overjoyed. Hitler became the man of the hour. The police and the people proclaimed him Savior of the City; the force sent by God to smash the Red domination. The Storm Troopers’ self-confidence from that moment knew no bounds.

Every city overrun with Communists now wanted Hitler, and sent out hurried calls for him. He came with his troops, traveling in trucks and trains, and there were more battles royal, with cracked skulls and broken backs. At last the Communists were put to flight.

Coburg became the first real Nazi city in Germany with many other cities following, where Hitler had waged his miniature wars.

The Jewish press continued to attack him and his troops, calling them brutes and rowdies. But Hitler’s rout of the Communists had attracted other and better elements and they rallied to his Cause.

Steadily his climb to the top of the mountain was being realized. Men followed him blindly, hysterically, believing that here, veritably, was the Savior who would establish the new Germany in all its prewar majesty and magnificence; the whole world would widen its eyes in awe and admiration.

Hitler’s Munich newspaper now became bolder and more defiant in its violent editorials, beginning to irritate and anger Berlin. The Government could no longer pretend to ignore this tirade of abuse. The War Ministry demanded that the Volkischer Beobachter be silenced and, if necessary, its presses smashed; but the Bavarian Government, in gratitude to Hitler for his successful campaign against the Communists, refused to carry out the order of Berlin.

It was then that Hitler proclaimed: “Never will Germany’s problems be solved until the Swastika waves from the Reichstag.”

Such was his audacious and grandiose challenge to Berlin. And Berlin was stunned.

Hitler now set up headquarters in the “Brown House” in Munich. And the National Socialistic Party offices began to buzz with activity. Young Nazis, in brown or black shirts, ran up and down stairs with important airs, pompously giving the “Hitler salute.” Telephones rang, typewriters clattered, doors banged.

“The Fuehrer is in town!” Everybody was eager to impress him. More and more, Hitler and his underlings tightened the organization. They outlined the new propaganda, exerting themselves in every direction, making speeches all over the city, at the same time putting on shows with unbelievable vigor.

Hitler took every advantage of the economic recessions. Roehm, Goering, Rosenberg and others swung into concerted action.

It was then that one Doctor Josef Goebbels came upon the scene. Son of a factory worker, grandson of a blacksmith. Doctor Goebbels, young, club-footed with burning fanatic eyes, narrow, dogged lips and a face reminiscent of a cadaver or an Egyptian mummy, cynical, bitter, cunning—but highly intelligent. Even Hitler shuddered when he met the cold recklessness of this youngster, just graduated from his eighth university. To Goebbels he entrusted great and momentous matters, particularly the dissemination of propaganda.

Hitler’s aim, to merge all the minor parties into one, succeeded. At the conference in Hanover, he was nominated as leader of the consolidated group.

Storm Troopers by the hundreds ran wild and concentrated now upon districts of the working man. Many paraded through the streets, singing, displaying signs and flags and staging wild demonstrations. The least challenge provoked riots, fights, shootings with the police force helpless and unable to cope with the disorders. Newspapers printed full reports of the wounded and apprehension seized the country. This organized lawless onslaught stirred up a new fear. Hatred and jealousy were rampant. Windows were smashed by the thousands in department stores, business buildings and residences of prominent industrialists and bankers. Berlin, Cologne, Dusseldorf, Duisburg and a score of other cities fell prey to this rioting and lawlessness.

Trouble broke out in the coal and steel area of the Rhineland and Ruhrgabiat. Though the evil-doers were seldom caught, the people were convinced that all the crimes were inaugurated by the Communists.

Goebbels, ever alert, took quick advantage. His Nazi Propaganda Bureau hammered into the minds of the people that only the Nazis could smash these subversive groups and save the country.

There were, however, a few embarrassing situations where, when caught, the rioters happened to be in Nazi uniforms or carried Nazi membership cards.

In the luxuriously furnished headquarters in the Brown House, councils were called; Hitler and his Cabinet met in weighty conference. These councils were seldom harmonious. Disloyalty, hatred, jealousy among the participants was quite evident. There was Roehm, the chief of the S. A., arrogantly showing his disdain of the Fuehrer’s words; Goebbels, fidgety and nervous, poised, ready at any moment to interrupt Hitler and start an endless speech of his own; Goering, dull and wearing his characteristic gloomy expression; Rosenberg, his face a blank and his eyes unseeing, affecting the air of a great diplomat. And there was the ever present, ever dependable Heinrich Schmidt, “Yes-Man-in-Chief,” who never spoke unless spoken to, who stood ever at the side of his Leader’s chair, silent and watchful; his hand on a gun, ready to act at the least sign of danger.

Of all the men in Germany, Hitler was the most active. His newspaper gave him enormous power and authority with which to disseminate his violent anti-government propaganda. He attacked all of the German authorities, denounced the government for its shameful capitulation to the invasion of the Ruhr.

However, all the other groups opposed to the government protocols rallied to the side of Hitler, expressing their resentment of the Treaty. Hitler was opening their eyes, saying things which they never dared think. Many now believed in Hitler’s ultimate victory. He was dynamic in lining up the youth and the working men of the nation. He was spreading his fear propaganda, making the people afraid of what might happen if the Communists won and the Nazis lost.

“The failure of Naziism,” he told them, “would mean that billions of capital would be lost and Communism grip the nation as a prairie fire. From a membership in 1925 of only 27,000, the year 1926 showed an increase to 178,000.”

But now came the most alarming handicap of Hitler’s career. A decree was issued from Berlin prohibiting him to speak in public. And so until 1928 he must perforce remain silent and content himself with the propaganda machinery of his newspaper.

Goebbels was again pressed into service. Hitler appointed him district leader for Berlin. Suffering from this setback of not being able to speak, Hitler busied himself with organizing another personal army to augment the Storm Troopers. This new force he called his S. S.’s (Schutz-Staffel). The pledge of these new troops was to guarantee to him the execution of any order he might issue in any branch of the party.

At this time also was organized “The Hitler Youth”, “The German Boys”, “The Order of German Women” and “The League of German Girls.”

This increased activity all the more focused attention upon the Nazi party and the dynamic personality of its leader, Adolph Hitler.

Next, he organized “The Fighting League for German Culture”, and with this League he won the support of the intellectuals.

Now, fairly drunk with the success of his organizing powers, he continued to form various other groups—the unions of Nazi Lawyers, Nazi Physicians, Nazi Teachers and, finally, the Nazi Students League; this latter organization aimed at getting control of the universities.

Hitler rapidly crystallized the Nazi movement for power over the Reich. His Volkischer Beobachter reorganized and intensified its propaganda.

His new army, the “S. S.”, was strengthened and even in Red Berlin, the Nazi movement was now rapidly springing into prominence and capturing the attention of the populace.

Hitler continued to attack every national problem, every governmental difficulty. He denounced Stresemann as a tool. He castigated the Dawes plan—blamed it for the wave of unemployment. He missed no chance to capitalize upon every phase of unrest, assaulting the entire economic system.

He shouted to the nation that the utter wreck of German industry was inevitable if existing conditions were not immediately changed. In 1929 he marched into Berlin with 60,000 of his brown shirts, and gave a tremendous demonstration of the growth of the Nazi party, its amazing force and influence. From this demonstration, he gained thousands upon thousands of new converts, and achieved for his Nazi party more and more seats in state, county and municipal elections.

The Communists were now deeply alarmed and their own military organization began to clash with the Nazis with increasing violence.

Hitler answered terror with terror.

Germany now had over 2,000,000 unemployed roaming the streets. The people were losing faith in the government. Tension was at the breaking point, conditions insufferable. Foreign credit had ceased entirely. Factories were shutting down, exchanges slowed up, bankruptcies prevalent. Hitler’s propaganda machines told the people that the Versailles Treaty was beginning to crush Germany beyond hope of recovery, to hold her forever in bondage.

The great psychological moment for Hitler had arrived. His supreme opportunity. His propaganda machines worked overtime, taking every advantage of Germany’s confused, hysterical, insufferable, bewildered state of mind.

The Junkers and barons of industry began to open their eyes and their minds and their purses to this Adolf Hitler and his National Socialistic Party; he, whom before they ridiculed and looked upon with contempt.

Enter upon the scene one Alfred Hugenburg, leader of the Nationalists, making overtures to Hitler, proposing to furnish the money, if Hitler would furnish the masses. Thus was formed the union between Hugenburg, the Monarchist, and Hitler, the Nazi Dictator. Combining the two forces they made a final onslaught on a decaying republic, both supposedly with the single purpose of annihilating Communism and scrapping unequivocally the Versailles Treaty. Also they were to deal with the Ruhr invasion until it would be only a question of time before they would capture the Reich and the Nazi Party would be the dominating Party of Germany.

Carefully, stealthily, diplomatically, Hitler played his game. He loaned his masses to Hugenburg, and with this combined Nazi-Nationalist force, he attacked the Young Plan, denouncing it as a political monster that would destroy the entire German Empire.

Through Hugenburg, money began to flow into Hitler’s coffers in a veritable flood. And with it came greater and greater power and influence. Hitler now became financial Dictator. All assets of the Party were registered in his name. He became the legal owner of his newspaper, and all Nazi buildings and enterprises. He had the right to dispose of every incoming donation as his whim and fancy might dictate. He had the power to oust any officers of the Party, without cause or reason. No one, therefore, ever contradicted him openly. His private offices became a suite of regal magnificence. Upon his gold encrusted desk were costly orchids. Fabulous palace furniture adorned the rooms and upon the antique mahogany wainscoting hung art treasures worth a king’s ransom. No longer was Adolf Hitler the ragged vagabond, the beggar in the street, the nobody from nowhere.

The Nazi movement was now firmly established in North Germany, Prussia. It was Hugenburg and Hugenburg’s money that gave Hitler his great crowning chance to make the Nazi movement the real Party of Germany.

CHAPTER XIV

In the election of September 14, 1930, the Nazi Party polled 650,000 votes, leaping from 12 deputies to 107 deputies—news that astonished and rocked the world. The Communists, however, still held the balance of power, preventing the Nazis at this time from becoming the controlling party of Germany.

Italy, France and England now began to notice and to cultivate Hitler, to talk with him about the international questions of the moment; particularly France, which now agreed, for the first time, to consider a revision of the Versailles Treaty; the return of the Saar territory; the unification of Austria; the restoration of former colonies and an amicable intervention in Poland.

Hitler replied that he did not believe in the sincerity of France; that disarmament did not mean only cutting down physical arms, but cutting out all malice and vindictive feeling toward Germany; and this he did not believe France could ever do. Germany, on the other hand, actually did disarm, subjecting herself to much contempt and calumny, destroying her economic life, reducing its people to such a state of despair that many thousands preferred Communism.

Hitler’s idea throughout was that by constant belligerence and defiant attacks on all opposing parties, he could, as time went on, gain greater and greater strength in the elections to come.

By 1930, the Nazi party represented a membership of 389,000 and it was then that Hitler enlisted the interest of one of the most powerful industrialists in all Germany, Fritz Thyssen. With Thyssen came the entire silk industry, adding tremendous strength to the Nazi cause. Hitler made a speech at Dusseldorf. Around this meeting hall he had marshalled both of his private armies, the S. A. and the S. S. troops, and there occurred terrific hand-to-hand fighting with the Communists all through the night. In this seething cauldron of Communists, scores of Nazis died for the cause. In many communities, employers were discharging those who followed Hitler and the churches mobilized against the Nazi Party.

Hitler, however, set his gigantic forces of propaganda into motion and the people were, for the time being, placated.

On February 22, 1932, Hitler’s influence had become so formidable that he was nominated for the Presidency of Germany, his great crowning triumph. He saw himself “The Man of the Hour,” the great, outstanding leader of the most powerful political party in the Empire. He, who skulked into Vienna a comparatively few years before, ragged, penniless, carrying only a bundle and in his pockets but a roll of sausage and a few slices of stale bread; he, who had slept in doorways—now became the most dominant and talked about figure in German history; out-rivaling even the dazzling Caesars—carving his niche in the archives of the world.

Adolf Hitler might now actually become President of Germany.

Fate, however, did not so decree.

Hitler was defeated, but while he did not ascend to the presidency, he had polled 7,000,000 more votes than his opponent, the Communist candidate.

There followed a second election. Hitler again was defeated and Von Hindenburg re-elected.

Von Hindenburg had now, definitely, engendered an animosity against “this upstart, Adolf Hitler” and, at his direction, measures were attempted to abolish Hitler’s Storm Troops, in an endeavor to deprive him of his entire private army.

But ten days later, in the Diet Elections, there was a Nazi landslide. Hitler’s Party landed 162 deputies, where heretofore there were but 6.

The great moment had arrived, when Hitler was to taste of his supreme triumph. His Nazi party, starting with only six members, without even a meeting place or a typewriter, had gradually and by superhuman effort through the years, vanquished one after another of the 35 other opposing political parties and now found itself the first Party of the Empire.

Germany now had 6,000,000 unemployed. The unrest among the people was at fever pitch. Conditions, unendurable. Thousands upon thousands cried out “Conditions must be changed.”

Hitler was now the man of the hour; the only leader thought of and talked about.

Then came another great Nazi rally, at Grunewald. Thousands crowded into the stadium. They gave Hitler the most thunderous reception he had ever received. At this moment, the entire destiny of Germany changed its course. The Nazis captured 230 seats in the next election, taking over two-fifths of the entire Parliament.

There now flocked about Hitler, many of the great tycoons of German industry. One meeting took place in the Cologne home of Baron Koeder. The industrial kings of the nation were assembled; powers that controlled over one-half of the nation’s wealth. Von Papen was the master of ceremonies.

Hitler, in another burst of oratory, told of his great ambition to unite the entire nation under one banner, sketching with increasing fervor his economic and political program. His auditors were enormously impressed. They expressed their appreciation of this enlightened and heartening speech. Hitler set forth his attitude toward capital, the accumulation of wealth, stock companies, etc.

“There will be no restrictions whatever; I detest Socialism,” he assured the magnates. “Germany can only become great through individualism or she would fall under the control of the masses. I pledge you that the masses will be kept in their place.”

Going on, he further assured his auditors that should he be elected Chancellor, Von Papen would be appointed his Vice-Chancellor. To him he would listen with respect, give great consideration to his advice regarding all economic policy and would not promulgate any legislation which Von Papen did not approve.

It was on this promise of allegiance to Von Papen, in whom these powers of industry had confidence, that Hitler made his strongest impression and won their support. The Jewish banker, Oppenstein, at a critical point in this conference, boldly hurled the Jewish question into the face of Hitler, demanding: “What is your attitude toward our Jewish population?”

It was a crucial question. Hitler was not prepared with an answer, but quickly he realized how critical the situation was and blandly replied: "Against honest Jews I have no fight. Old Jewish resident families have served our nation well. They are, I consider, as German as I am, and have contributed much to the growth and up—building of the Empire. But there are other Jews who are detrimental to our country. Thousands, after the war, were poured in upon us from Russia and Poland. I consider that type destructive; it is against these only that our campaign is directed. We want to send them back where they came from.”

“I don’t like them either,” interposed banker Oppenstein.

And it was this involuntary declaration that dispelled the tension of the meeting.

Von Papen arranged great financial transactions and brought large donations and pledges to Hitler.

It was now that Adolf Hitler prepared to play his ace. If he could not be President, he would be Chancellor. “The Shoes of Bismarck!” They would fit Adolf Hitler!

Von Papen agreed to call upon Von Hindenburg and urge Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor. First, a meeting was effected with Von Hindenburg’s son, Colonel Oscar Von Hindenburg, who served his father as confidential secretary. Von Papen argued that the majority of industrialists were not friendly to the present regime; but Oscar, knowing his father’s dislike of Hitler, was loath to plead his cause.

A little mild blackmail then came in handy. Von Papen reminded Oscar of some 135,000 marks which Oscar had received from a certain Relief Fund and converted illegally to his own personal East Prussia estate; “surely it would not be nice” was the insinuation, “to have that come to the surface, making you the center of a scandal.”

Oscar quickly, if not willingly, consented to approach his father in Hitler’s behalf; and despite the fact that at a previous time Hitler’s name had been brought to the old President’s attention he had exploded: “I will make him a village post master where he can spend the rest of his life growing fat licking the backs of my stamps, Bah!” he had continued contemptuously, “ This Austrian, this bohemian corporal, this gutter-snipe, Chancellor of Germany? Ridiculous!”

When von Hindenberg’s slight of Hitler became known, bedlam broke loose in Berlin. Sixty thousand brown-shirted Storm Troops formed a ring around the city with guns ready. Martial law was proclaimed.

The Nazi party demanded its rewards of the election, due by reason of their overwhelming majority. The Storm 'Troopers, in a blind rage, were getting out of hand. Hitler subdued them, urging that the fight proceed legally. And again he swung into action with mass meetings and fiery speeches, with proclamations and editorials. Furiously, his propaganda machines spewed hate and vituperation.

The State realized it dared not precipitate civil war.

In a few months, Hitler had marshaled a lone of more than 500,000 S. A.’s, and 750,000 S. S. guards. He could easily have mobilized 2,000,000 troops within thirty-six hours. Berlin might then be isolated, starved into capitulation.

An emergency meeting was quickly called. It decided that Oscar Von Hindenburg go again to his father and plead once more the cause of Hitler, this time making the old Field Marshal realize the nation faced a grave crisis. It was decided that the approach this time should be from a new angle. They would flaunt Von Schleicher in his face. Von Hindenburg hated Von Schleicher for his continuous impudence in assuming power over the army.

History records that in the middle of a certain night three men approached Hindenburg’s private chambers. Von Papen, Oscar Von Hindenburg, and Adolf Hitler. He was awakened from his slumber, the proposition put to him.

The old President rubbed his sleepy eyes and exclaimed angrily:

“Dormer wetter, what is this madness, to wake me out of a sound sleep?”

“I apologize, father,” meekly replied the son, “but I have just learned that Von Schleicher has threatened to call out the army.”

The aged President’s head snapped back and all traces of sleep vanished. “Von Schleicher!” he exploded. “Who does he think he is? A Field Marshal? Never!! He is only in charge of the people and the troops. He is a civilian. I am the Field Marshal.”

Von Papen diplomatically interjected:

“We must strip him of his power, Excellency. You must appoint a non-military power so that the army shall remain yours and only yours.”

Von Hindenburg muttered to himself, looking to his son as if searching for guidance.

Quieting him, Oscar put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Von Papen is right, Father,” he exclaimed. “It is true, what he says. We need a nonmilitary man as Chancellor.” And gulping nervously, he dared now to spring the hated name, “Adolf Hitler would be the ideal choice.”

Von Hindenburg could not conceal his contempt. He scarcely looked at Hitler, but realizing suddenly his extreme age, concluded that perhaps his son was acting in the best interest of the state after all. In a resigned solemn tone, he made the announcement that rang ’round the world:

“I here and now appoint Adolf Hitler, Chancellor.” Hitler stepped forward, bowed low and in tones of deepest emotion replied:

“I promise to carry out the Field Marshal’s ideas to the last detail.”

And so it was that Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany and Von Papen, Vice–Chancellor.

               *            *           *           *          *

And that night. Such excitement, such furor, such bedlam not since the Armistice. “Heil Hitler!” “Heil!” “Heil!” “Heil the new Chancellor!”

Huge torchlight processions marched through the streets of Berlin, triumphant pageants, scores of bands of music. 50,000 Nazi Storm Troopers, each with a torch in his hand, marched, cheering. Every man with the air of a conqueror, triumph radiated on every face.

This night Hitler wore a frock coat and a high silk hat. Adolf Hitler, the man who, for fourteen years had never held a real job, had now stepped from a painter’s scaffold and a paper-hanger’s ladder, into “the shoes of Bismarck.”

He was determined that, so far as history was concerned, those shoes would prove too small for him.

CHAPTER XV

The years passed slowly in Gronau. One day followed another as quietly, as uneventfully as the years themselves. In time Ilsa and Fritz were married and, in what seemed but another short while—so silently did the days slip by—they emerged into parenthood with the birth of their little son, Karl.

The infant Karl was cared for tenderly and flourished under the profusion of love showered upon him not only by his mother and father, but by his indulgent grandparents as well. From the toothless, cooing, chubby stage of his infanthood he grew and developed into a beautiful little golden-haired boy of quick wit, with a natural and unruly desire for play.

Summer gave way to fall and fall to winter. Then, almost imperceptibly, it was summer again. Year after year the seasons merged in Gronau, one into the other. Only new little individual signs of age among the people gave evidence that another year was upon them. Otherwise, nothing had changed fundamentally. The kaffe klatsches and the chess games continued, the celebrations and the special parties took place.

Among the parties which were given with regularity for special occasions was the one held each spring in the home of Frau Mendelsohn in honor of the doctor’s birthday. The few things which marked this occasion as exceptional were the special little cakes and candies on the buffet and the abundance of gifts for the doctor from his many friends in the village. Without these unusual embellishments, the party might easily have been nothing more than any number of other gatherings which were held regularly among these close friends and neighbors.

As one more winter melted into spring, once again Frau Mendelsohn prepared for the annual celebration. She worked diligently in the kitchen and, removing two apple pies from the large oven, she placed them out on the window sill to cool.

Outside in the garden the sun touched the early flowers with warmth. Doctor Mendelsohn dozed comfortably among the fragrantly renascent rose bushes, stretched out to his full length in a hammock. He was successfully shaking off the strain of an arduous day in the operating room when the noise of the garden gate behind him, opening with a creak, disturbed his peace. He turned lazily to his side to observe the intruder.

It was Herr Schmidt, who rushed over excitedly to a seat near the doctor and waved a newspaper before him.

"See, my friend, I was right! We’re heading toward a grave economic depression. It will have an important bearing upon our political development.”

“What do you mean?” The doctor was disquieted.

“If the banks close, there’ll be no credit available for industry and won’t be long before we are fertile ground for the demagogues,” Herr Schmidt explained.

Just then the kitchen door opened and the fresh odor of baking penetrated into the garden.

Doctor Mendelsohn was diverted temporarily by the more pressing problem of dinner. “Forget the government for the moment,” he said, “and sit down with us to dinner.”

“Thank you, I will.” Apparently Herr Schmidt too had reacted with interest to the smell of the food.

The two men made their way into the house. Frau Mendelsohn, still enveloped in her large apron, came to greet them. The doctor kissed her affectionately on both cheeks. Then he sniffed inquiringly.

“It smells good, mama,” he said.

Frau Mendelsohn smiled with pleasure but did nothing to enlighten her husband. She indicated a comfortable rocking chair to Herr Schmidt. “Sit down here,” she suggested. Then she shook her finger in warning to her husband. “And don’t you dare snoop in the kitchen.”

Doctor Mendelsohn turned to Herr Schmidt and winked. “When mama pushes us out of the kitchen, it means something very special. I think we’re in for a nice surprise this evening.”

Herr Schmidt glanced in the direction of the door and asked, “Where is Karl?”

Frau Mendelsohn’s face lighted into a smile at the mention of the child. “Don’t worry. He will be here with Ilsa any minute.” She left the room and walked back toward the kitchen to continue her preparations.

Suddenly from outside there was the sound of a high-pitched little voice. The doctor, hearing it, dropped quickly into a chair and pretended to be asleep. He began to snore loudly, with infinite variations. A little blond head appeared in the doorway and in another minute Karl rushed headlong in. With great delight, he ran over and climbed up onto the doctor’s lap. Doctor Mendelsohn feigned surprise and annoyance at being aroused and playfully spanked the boy. Karl’s inquisitive little head turned about until he spied his other grandfather, too, and he quickly scrambled down and ran over to embrace him.

Grandfather Mendelsohn spoke first to the boy. “Come Karl, let us hear you say your verse.” He glanced in mock sympathy toward Herr Schmidt. “And speak up loud, for poor grandpa Schmidt is getting very old and deaf.”

“Old, am I?” Herr Schmidt turned to the boy. “Look, your grandpa Mendelsohn can’t do this!” He dropped to the floor on all fours and cavorted in the manner of a pony. Karl jumped about in great glee and climbed up onto his grandfather’s back.

“Giddap, giddap, horsie, and carry Karl to Berlin!” he shouted, as he vigorously prodded his pony with an active foot.

Both pony and rider were progressing around the room when Ilsa and Fritz entered. Ilsa, since her marriage, had grown increasingly beautiful and as she stood now in the doorway dressed in a formal black lace gown, the whiteness of her skin and her black eyes and hair appeared even more lovely. In her arms she carried a tremendous bouquet of spring flowers.

“Happy birthday, papa!” Ilsa came over to her father and kissed him. She deposited the flowers unceremoniously in his lap.

“Happy birthday! Happy birthday!” came now from Herr Schmidt and Fritz. Even little Karl joined in the chorus of well wishes and sang “Happy birthday!” in a sort of monotone.

Doctor Mendelsohn’s reaction was one of complete surprise.

Frau Mendelsohn entered and came over to embrace her husband. As she did so she closed her eyes and murmured, “May God preserve you for us for many, many years.”

The doctor’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, mama,” he said. “Thank you, my dear children and my good friend Schmidt. Thank you all.”

Frau Mendelsohn, too, was having difficulty stemming her tears.

“Why are you crying, grandmama?” Karl asked.

“Because I’m happy, Karlchen.” She smiled through her tears.

The door bell at the front of the house pealed loudly and startled everyone. Frau Mendelsohn responded quickly to its ring.

“The guests! They’re here! Quick Karl, take grandma’s apron.” She pulled it off and handed it to the boy. Then, adjusting her dress, she walked efficiently to the door to admit her guests. Rabbi Goldman and Pastor Miller followed her back into the sitting room and each in turn offered felicitations to Doctor Mendelsohn.

“It’s hard to believe this is his eightieth birthday,” said Herr Schmidt, as he shook his head in wonder.

“Sixtieth!” Frau Mendelsohn was indignant. Then she patted her husband’s hand protectively. “Don’t let them tease you, papa. You don’t look a day over forty.”

Fanny, from the dining room, opened the sliding doors and quietly called “Dinner is ready.” From the entire group in the sitting room came a unanimous, “Aaahhl”

What they saw in the dining room was an enchanting scene. The huge family dining table was covered with a snowy white lace cloth. On it, in the soft light from the many candles set in their heavy brass holders, there was a profusion of gold-rimmed china and sparkling glassware.

Doctor Mendelsohn, touched, walked over to his wife and took her hands in his. “Thank you, mama, mein liebchen” he said.

Frau Mendelsohn buried her face on his breast and cried a little. The doctor comforted her softly.

“All these years together, mama,’’ he whispered, “and still we’re sweethearts.”

“Yes, papa, yes,” she answered. Then, as an afterthought, “If only Karl and Johann were here with us to help you celebrate.”

The doctor tilted her chin up. “Come now, mama. You must pull yourself together.”

Frau Mendelsohn smiled again. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but an old woman needs a good cry sometimes. Come, let’s sit down.”

The party moved into the dining room and seated themselves around the table. There was an obvious dampening of their spirits, however, because of the reference to her sons which Frau Mendelsohn had made. Quietly, Fanny began to serve the dinner.

Herr Schmidt suddenly broke the silence. “Look! Look!” From under the table he brought forth a bottle and held it before the doctor. “Schloss Kupferberg, Auslese, 1921.”

“Excellent, excellent!” the doctor exclaimed. He smacked his lips in anticipation.

Fanny filled their glasses and they prepared to toast the doctor when Peter came running into the room.

“Wait for me,” he cried. Then he turned to his father. “Happy birthday, papa. I’m terribly sorry to be so late but two of my pupils detained me after class.” The young man found his place at the table and sat down. He raised his glass with the others and together they toasted the doctor.

When the long dinner was over the entire group made its way back into the sitting room. Little Karl marched around, kissing everyone good night and went off to bed, finally, with Ilsa.

It was not quite dark yet when Professor Munther and Professor Meiser arrived to join in the celebration.

“Come in, come in,” the doctor shouted, cordially. “You’re just in time.” He poured out two more glasses of wine for the new arrivals.

A flicker of disappointment crossed the faces of the professors. Meiser spoke, “We have our own bottle here for you,” he said.

“That’s all the better. We can drink it later.” Fran Mendelsohn consoled them graciously.

Pastor Miller rose to propose a formal toast. “First, to our Fatherland. And may God bless and strengthen us all that we may serve it best!”

The glasses clicked and the wine was sipped. There were more toasts and more sips. Then cigars were passed among the men.

Professor Munther, holding a match to the end of his cigar, opened the conversation. “Our new Chancellor, Adolf Hitler,” his voice grew solemn, “what do you think?”

An immediate tension invaded the room. No one spoke for a minute. Then Frau Mendelsohn said, “I’m terribly afraid—terribly afraid.”

Ilsa came back into the room at this point and looked about in surprise. “Hello,” she said, “what’s the matter? I thought this was a party, but it looks more like a funeral.”

“Maybe it is a funeral,” Fritz commented.

“The funeral of our freedom, perhaps,” his father added.

Professor Munther explained. “I’ve just asked for an opinion about Hitler.”

Ilsa shuddered visibly. Clear in her mind again was the whole horrible scene of her visit to Heinrich at Landsberg prison. After almost ten years, her memory of that day was as vivid and terrifying as though it had been but yesterday. She came over and sat down next to Fritz who took her hand in silent understanding.

Herr Schmidt, with an uncontrollable hatred for the man who had stolen his son, now spoke bitterly. “The appointment of Hitler is, I think, the greatest misfortune which could have befallen Germany.”

Pastor Miller attempted to inject a little optimism into the gloom which had enveloped them. “Perhaps it will turn out all right in the end,” he said.

“How can it?” Fritz argued. “Eventually the people must learn that to manage an Empire like Germany you need hard work, not speeches. You can’t feed people with promises.”

Rabbi Goldman interrupted. “I see the thing in a different light. After all, Hitler has been legally appointed to the Chancellorship. A majority of the people voted him into his power.”

“But in order to get their votes, Hitler promised so much to so many different elements that it will be impossible for him to redeem most of his promises,” Fritz explained.

The Rabbi’s defense of Hitler was dictated not so much by his love for the man as by his sense of fairness. “Such are the facts with most governments,” he said. “But one man cannot please everybody. If he is sincere, however, what he can do is to strive for a unification of our nation. Then at least there will be some good results.”

“But his methods!” Every one turned in surprise at the sound of sharpness in Peter’s voice. “Have you forgotten what he did to Heinrich? How he hates our Jewish people? His cruel discrimination?” Pastor Miller answered this outburst. “I’m not a politician,” he began. “I’m interested only in the philosophical side of Hitler and his movement. From that angle I’ve followed his career closely. I’ve come to this conclusion about him: Hitler is trying to impersonate Nietzsche’s Superman . . .”

“But we must judge Hitler only by his acts as Chancellor and not as a party leader,” Professor Meiser interrupted. “He has a special power now which he did not have before. My suggestion would be to refrain from committing ourselves in any way until we have had a chance to see just how he will use that power.”

Peter was still dissatisfied. “I’ve listened with all due respect to my elders but I insist that this is a political, not a philosophical matter. I don’t flatter myself that I have an unusually observant eye, yet I see very clearly what’s happening all around me. Even in my own school—among the young boys and girls—Hitler’s unreasonable prejudices are spreading like wildfire.” He turned to Pastor Miller. “It may interest you to know,” he said, “that the propaganda is directed not only against Jews and Catholics but against all churches.”

Pastor Miller was openly incredulous. “But that’s impossible. Hitler has declared time and again that true Christianity is the very basis of his movement.” “I hope you’ll never be disillusioned,” Peter commented pessimistically.

Frau Mendelsohn had been listening intently up until now. “I’m only a woman and I know nothing of politics,” she shook her head as she spoke, “but my instinct has been reliable all my life. And I, too, am afraid, terribly afraid—not so much for us but for our children, and our children’s children . . .”

‘‘Please, mama,” Ilsa said worriedly, “don’t excite yourself.”

“I’m not excited, Ilschen,” Frau Mendelsohn told her. “But if it’s true—everything you hear on the streets and in the markets—then little Karl will have to suffer more than we can imagine.”

Ilsa turned pale but did not move or make any comment. Fritz, sitting next to her, put his arm around her protectively and held her close.

“Darling, please don’t worry,” he murmured. “Whatever happens, we will stand together.”

Peter continued belligerently, turning again to*the Pastor, “Tell me, Pastor Miller, how can you explain Hitler’s rabid anti-Semitism?”

The Pastor thought for a minute before he answered. Then he said, “I honestly believe that he was badly influenced and spoke as he did only for propaganda purposes. I’m sure he must be a true Christian—” his voice now lost some of its conviction, “at least he claims to be one.”

The silence with which the last statement was met spoke eloquently for the general disbelief.

Doctor Mendelsohn now contributed his opinion. “Somehow,” he said, “I cannot feel that there is any present basis for alarm. After all, we have our guaranteed freedom of speech and of the press. No one individual can defy our constitution and get away with it.”

Peter shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t rely on that too much, father,” he advised. “I can see what is happening around us.”

“But,” Professor Munther spoke indignantly, “if Hitler ever tried to harm the Jews of good German stock, don’t you think the entire nation would rise up in protest? Can you believe that Germany doesn’t recognize the merits of her citizens? My dear young man, you lost two brothers in the war—German Jews.” He waved his arm toward Meiser. "Meiser here also lost his two sons—German Jews. In view of such sacrifice, do you believe anyone will say that Jews are not true citizens of Germany? Never!”

Doctor Mendelsohn tried again to placate his son. “Maybe your apprehensions are unnecessarily great, Peter,” he said. “Remember, Heinrich is involved in this Nazi movement. I can’t believe he would stick to it if it were unworthy. I’ve known that boy all his life and I willingly swear for his sincerity and integrity.”

Ilsa and Fritz exchanged between them one swift, painful glance, but beyond this there was nothing in their manner to manifest their inner doubt.

It was late when the group dispersed. After the last of the guests had departed, Frau Mendelsohn enlisted the aid of Ilsa, Fritz and Peter and began to clear away the glasses and the ash-trays.

“You go to bed, papa,” she said to her husband, “we’ll tidy up.”

“Can’t you leave everything as it is until the morning, mama?”

“It’s all right,” she assured him, “you go to bed. It won’t take us long.”

The doctor kissed Ilsa good night and then came over to his wife. “Don’t worry, mama,” he said as he embraced her, “everything’ll turn out all right.”

Frau Mendelsohn’s answer was almost a whisper. “I wonder. . . .”

CHAPTER XVI

From the moment Adolf Hitler came into power as Chancellor of the Reich, he left no doubt of his determination ruthlessly to pursue his plans in Germany and abroad. He proceeded to fill the most important ministries with his personal friends.

Those followers, at his command, immediately started to change the entire governmental machine and deliver it up as a tool to the Dictator to do with as he might choose. Within a few days, thousands of experienced and meritorious officials, without a moment’s notice, were thrown out of their positions and replaced by members of the Nazi party. Knowledge or talent was no longer a requisite in obtaining a position of responsibility. Under Hitler the only requirement was membership in his party.

Young men, only just graduated from school and entirely without business experience of any kind, were made presidents of courts, directors of hospitals, commanders of police forces. . . . Burgomasters.

Their only task—to spread National Socialism among the population and to crash mercilessly down upon the enemies of the party; the definition as to who was to be considered an enemy was “anyone and everyone who is not a conspirator with, and a vociferous shouter for, Adolf Hitler.” A person’s social or business rating or technical or professional fitness counted for naught.

Shudders of fear ran through the country. No one knew when he was going to read in the newspapers that he was forbidden thereafter to enter his own office. The number of dismissals ran so high, the state machinery was unable to keep pace with it. The new government simplified the procedure of dismissal. Written notices to those concerned were entirely abandoned. Instead, long lists of the dismissals were printed in the newspapers, thus giving these victims their first knowledge of their dismissal. No one dared resist or protest or even question any decision of the newly appointed officer, however damnably wrong. For if a dismissed one should dare even to enter his office, if only to recover personal belongings from his own desk, he was immediately placed under arrest and thrown into a “Concentration Camp.”

The inauguration of this new, infamous institution, the Concentration Camp, was begun the day after Hitler’s elevation to chancellorship. A type of penal institution corresponding to a medieval prison. Old factories, buildings deserted for years as unsafe, were hurriedly pushed into service as places of confinement of so-called “political prisoners” and surrounded by barbed wire and with the most brutish sentries and guards, they were transformed into jails or veritable torture chambers over night. No offense, no court order, no legitimate official ruling of any kind was necessary to land one in a Hitler Concentration Camp. A man was put behind the bars if he so much as looked his disapproval of the regime, the prisoner being deprived not only of his freedom but of his constitutional rights and, to make it all the more vicious and inhuman, not even allowed to engage a lawyer or to see his family, or in any way communicate with the outer world. He just disappeared.

In most cases the family of the prisoner did not ever know how, why or where he had disappeared. There merely came the evening when he failed to come home, and never was heard of again. Cases were known where the ashes of a prisoner were sent back to his family with a cruel note that he had been killed while trying to “resist” or “escape” arrest. No further explanation was considered necessary and an order also was imposed upon the family of the victim to maintain strict silence on the incident, under threat of heavy penalties.

The treatment of “political prisoners” was cruel in the extreme. Tortures, horrors, indescribable. The larger centers, Berlin, Munich, Cologne, had camps located within the city limits. Day and night, the crying, groaning, shouting and yelling of the prisoners could be heard on the streets surrounding these Concentration buildings until they became deserted and the people who were forced to remain residents of the neighborhood slept with thick cotton puffs in their ears that they might not hear more of the horrors.

Women were seen crossing their breasts and muttering prayers. Others were so terrified, they predicted the imminent end of the world. But even instinctive reaction, such as this, to the raging bestiality, the cruel carnage and cold-blooded butchering, had to be hidden, for if any Nazi observed it, the guilty one would be accused of subversive activity and thrown into prison.

These Concentration Camps were the lowest dens of degradation, producing mental torments so terrific that only the strongest constitutions and minds could withstand them. Those of weaker make-up beat their heads against the stone walls and shrieked throughout the night, although no actual physical punishment might be then inflicted upon them.

Cells with room enough for barely seven now held twenty. The occupants could lie down and sit up only with difficulty, an agreed signal being given before a move could be made. The filth was indescribable. Not a word was permitted to be spoken, and this enforced silence was punishment in the extreme. The penalty for holding a whispered conversation out of the corner of the mouth was “the dungeon.” Only a slit in the wall high above provided light and ventilation. The outer walls were alive with high-tension electrical wires. Instant death to anyone who touched them. Guards also stood at attention with machine guns ready for the kill.

Religious persecution was everywhere apparent, regardless of propaganda to the contrary. In one Concentration Camp there were incarcerated no less than 300 priests. All prisoners’ heads were shaved and suits of coarsest cotton substituted for their regular clothing. Mattresses restuffed with straw. Lawyers, doctors, former high officials, men of culture were thrown in with thugs, derelicts and scum of the streets. Chicory, black bread and a thin watery soup was the average meal. The guards carried black bull whips and frequently lashed out at some poor devil of a prisoner who was doing something exactly in accord with their wishes or ideas. Prisoners were forced to break rock and perform the most laborious work. Only strong backs and strong nerves could hold out. Guards wore hobnail boots and every few minutes delivered a spine-crushing kick. Tension was terrific. Zombies, living dead men! No one knew what horror might await him day by day. No relaxation, no relief . . . no comfort of any kind . . .

Fear! Fearl Fear all through the day and all through the night and frequent suicides. A man knotted a few rags together and hung himself. Another sliced his wrists with a piece of tin can and bled to death. And this excruciating mental and physical agony went on and on for weeks, months, years. The prisoner was allowed no visitors and no mail. No contact whatsoever with the outside world. Never did he know the extent of his punishment . . . what might be still in store for him . . . or when he would be released. These things he was never told. Thousands there were who did not even know why they had been thrown into prison. Certainly they committed no actual crimes. Before this reign of terror, all were peaceful, law-abiding, average God-fearing German citizens. Conspiracy never entered their minds. They had but one love, the Fatherland; but one purpose—to serve, and serve it to the last drop of blood in their veins. Then all of a sudden, a young S. A. trooper kicks in their door in the dead of night; drags them out of bed, and out into a waiting van, without one word of explanation, and throws them into a cell; there they must stay and suffer torture, and perhaps rot, the rest of their lives, if they are not fortunate enough to be stood up against a wall before a firing squad.

Such were the first few months of the reign of the benevolent Adolf Hitler as Chancellor. The Hitlerites did their part to drown out these sounds of horror under the false pretense of giving to the neighborhood an air of cheer and joy. They started bands of music marching up and down, paid for by the Hitler Government, to go through the streets and play patriotic marches and attempt to engage the people in Lieder singing. A band of music would suddenly appear at the most important intersection, blocking traffic and completely jamming the streets. This, deliberately to attract thousands of pedestrians and passing motor cars; forcing them to stop and listen to the playing of the new “Horst Wessel” anthem and other especially created Nazi marches which now replaced the German anthems of old.

The instigator of this propaganda was the same Doctor Goebbels. His job was ever to impress the people, particularly foreigners, as to how happy, contented and peaceful the new Germany was under the new Chancellor, Hitler, the Saviour of Germany.

The Propaganda Bureau was never idle and its versatility knew no limits. Members of the party and groups of S. A. troops especially designated were posted in front of the Chancellory and Ministries as a paid professional claque, to start cheering and shouting to the high heavens until Hitler or one of his chieftains appeared in a window to bow and wave a salute to the crowd.

Hitler had established temporary offices facing the beautiful and busy Wilhelmstrasse. All day long there was a steady stream of visitors, those who came to receive orders, to offer advice, or to solicit rewards for services previously rendered to him and to the party.

When the demonstration from the street became sufficiently noisy and worthy of his attention, Hitler rose majestically from his desk and proceeded like an emperor to the window. He affected a festive mood and assumed the air of a man, who after long and arduous climbing, had at last reached the top, and now was the supreme and undisputed ruler of the multitudes groveling at his feet, possessed of greatest, most colossal and far-reaching power of any one potentate ever recorded in the world’s history. Down on the street, during one of these hero-worship demonstrations, a young electrical shop apprentice accidentally dropped a package containing several light bulbs and, just at the moment when there was a period of silence as Hitler opened his mouth to speak, there came a sharp crack of the exploding bulbs.

Hitler paled, jumped and dropped back; then rapidly disappeared through a window, Goebhels rushing to his side.

“Somebody shot at me!” Hitler shouted, his livid face expressing fear and terror. “Have the streets cleared instantly”

“But we can’t do that, my Fuehrer,” Goebbels protested. “We need the crowd for atmosphere. It would make a bad impression on everybody if we drove them away.”

Hitler’s old suspicion of Goebbels came rushing back to his mind. He gave the cripple a long, dark look and frowningly snapped at him: “Do you expect me to make a target of myself? Anybody can shoot me any time I appear in the window.” His lips barely moved. Then he recovered himself, and adopting a threatening tone: “Is it by any chance your intention that this happen?”

The sly smile on Goebbels’ face disappeared. He thought fast. This was not the time to provoke the Fuehrer. He was determined to stop at nothing. He immediately backtracked and exclaimed fervidly, “If anybody tried to shoot at you, I would shield you with my naked breast.”

And as ridiculous as was this statement, Goebbels made it sound sincere. Hitler was placated. But Goebbels professed more loyalty and devotion as he continued:

“I have a plan to keep away every possible danger from you.”

“Yes?” said Hitler, much interested.

“I know a man,” Goebbels lowered his tone, “who would impersonate you; a little make-up and people won’t know the difference.”

Hitler was slow to grasp the idea.

“Yes,” Goebbels went on, “when the people cheer for you to come to the window, I will rush in your double and he will make the appearance in your stead, but the crowd will not suspect. Then if a criminal should try to shoot—well, you will be out of danger, and so the crowd can be pleased, and you will be secure at the same time,” and pausing for breath, “what do you think, Your Excellency?”

Understanding began to dawn upon Hitler.

“A double, you say? A man who looks exactly like me?”

Goebbels nods.

“Who is this man, my double?” Hitler asked eagerly. “You know him?”

“Yes, a certain actor,” Goebbels replied, “and a man we can trust. We shall keep him right here in the building. Nobody shall know anything about him and he will be pledged to silence and to obey. And he can make up so that 50 feet away no one will ever detect the deception.”

And so it was agreed. The “double” was soon installed.

Hitler had reason to be alarmed. Back in 1923, a Bavarian officer, one Von Godin, actually did make an attempt to shoot him, but a bodyguard threw himself before Hitler and received five bullets, Hitler escaping to the Alps, terrified.

At Goebbels’ suggestion, Hitler chose a new office for himself, a room facing a narrow yard in the center of the Chancellory; and to make his security all the greater, the next day all offices opening onto the courtyard had their window panes painted black and the frames nailed up, so that they could neither be seen out of, nor opened again.

Thus Hitler was now completely protected from the street crowds, for there also was a secret door leading into the yard of another house, and this house in turn had a direct connection with the Brown House around the corner in Voss Street.

Through this secret, circuitous and complicated passage, Hitler might pass in and out of his office without the knowledge of any one, and his double might drive through the official gate, completely fooling the crowd. He could also now receive visitors coming through the same secret passage.

Hitler was in the greatest danger when in the Chancellory or when attending some official or party function, or when he had to use an automobile.

The Chancellory was under the protection of a special corps of 150 black-coat guardsmen who wore steel helmets and carried rifles. Guards were stationed at the main gates and sentries stood in the reception hall, the archway to the inner court, the outside court, and the private quarters occupied by the Fuehrer.

Thus all entrances were guarded and blocked against intrusion.

No ruler was so closely guarded as Hitler, not even Stalin of Russia. His home was hidden away in the town of Berchtesgaden. Here Adolf Hitler brooded and held councils of state. The house was a veritable palace and fortress on all sides and the entire mountain for miles around is fenced in with electrified wire. A private speedway, over which only Hitler himself and his aides might travel, cut through the very center of the mountain and connected the retreat in a straight line with Munich, 120 miles away; all along the route were machine guns and anti-aircraft emplacements. A private aerodrome was built in a field nearby and deep under the palace were bomb and gas-proof cellars.

Here Hitler seldom received visitors and he had but few women friends. It is claimed that his greatest love was for his niece, Greta Raubal, who for years kept house for him, but who in 1930, for reasons spoken only in whispers, committed suicide in her bedroom in Hitler’s home.

Later it was to be openly rumored that he was deeply enamored of the motion picture actress, Leni Riefenstahl, an undisputed Jewess. To her, Hitler is declared to have said while both were house guests in the Berlin home of Frau Siegfried Wagner: “What does it matter who or what you are, since I love you?” A speech which leaked out and which now trickles all over Germany, causing sleepless nights for Field Marshal Goering, to whom Hitler entrusted the task of ridding the nation of Jews.

Hitler, when driving through the crowded streets in his powerful Mercedes, always rode in the front seat next to his faithful chauffeur and personal bodyguard, Schreck.

The top of the car was always down and the five seats in the back occupied by sharpshooters with rifles held cocked. The fact that he would attend the opera or theatre was never announced. Places were never reserved in his name and he always arrived late and left before the finale, with the lobby completely cleared for his exit.

A second attempt was made on the life of Hitler in 1932, in Nuremberg during an election demonstration. A bomb which was intended for Hitler’s car was thrown by mistake at Julius Streicher’s car.

Hitler loved propaganda, but stood in virtual terror of publicity. He knew that the Chancellery was under the steady observation of correspondents of foreign newspapers who, hungry for news, might figure out what was going on according to who entered or left the buildings. Correspondents lounging about the lobby or the dining room of the Hotel Kaiserhof, directly across the street, all had field glasses constantly focused upon the entrance to the Chancellery.

Hitler, hearing of this, would have actually closed the entire Kaiserhof Hotel. However, Goebbels again restrained him from doing this.

“It would arouse suspicion, if we did that,” Goebbels argued, “let’s lead the newspapermen astray. The same effect and no bad publicity.”

The German papers were easily handled. Hitler merely issued the order and all liberal and leftist papers and periodicals were immediately suspended. A host of editors found themselves in concentration camps.

S. A. Troops, well rehearsed, would force their way through to the press rooms and as “righteously raging patriots” wreck the presses and smash the furniture to bits. Later the Government lifted the ban, but there were no editors nor presses left to print these newspapers; wherefore, the Government, “in order to preserve the jobs of German working people,” confiscated the whole property and turned it over to the party which Hitler owned. Then, a few days later, new editors and new printers recruited from party members, turned out a new paper or periodical. And this “all-Nazi” method was ever a simple and quite effective method.

The German press, as “observer” or “critic” was thus eliminated. But to curb the foreign press, that was a different situation!

Goebbels’ trick to “lead the correspondents astray” worked well until an American newspaper man discovered the secret entrance to the Brown House. It remained for Goebbels to solve this problem later.

Most elaborate precautions were taken to prevent news of Nazi activities and atrocities from slipping into the ordinary news channels to get publicity abroad. All foreign correspondents were bullied and threatened and everything possible was done to stifle their voices and break off their pencil points. Cable offices were ordered not to send out any news stories not entirely favorable. A special army of spies was quickly recruited to follow all foreign correspondents, to eagle-eye their every move, mingling with them in their beerstubes and Kaffee Houses, straining their ears to try and pick up any stray word that might give them an inkling of the workings of the correspondents’ minds and what they intended to write regarding Nazi atrocities for publication in their respective journals throughout the world.

Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, rarely found time for sleep, so busy was he with his defense and denial of any published atrocity. He wrote thousands of words and spoke unnumbered hours on the radio in a Herculean effort to spread the legend that the foreign press lied; that none of these atrocities happened; that Germany was going along in her own peaceful, placid way, minding her own business; and for proof of this, he actually called Jews to the microphone and forced those dupes to testify that “not a hair of a Jew’s head has been harmed.” But later this same pathetic individual broke down and screamed in anguish: “What else could I do? If I refused to say what they wanted me to say, they threatened to imprison my poor wife and torture her as they did me.” Yet there were those sympathizers of “poor Germany” who refused to see that there was anything wrong with the Nazi regime and were quick to challenge any statement that there was the slightest persecution either of the Jews or of the Catholics, dismissing the matter with the statement that “you must be exaggerating. I don’t believe a word of it.”

One German confided to a foreigner at the risk of his own life: “No decent-minded person reads newspapers in Germany any more, much less believes them. We subscribe for them because we have to, but we use them in our stoves and toilets.”

Visitors going to Germany found that all trains were stopped at the border and all outside newspapers confiscated. German officials did not wish the people to know that the Nazi Government had engendered the hatred of the outside world.

CHAPTER XVII

Despite all the torrents of propaganda pouring forth from the National Socialistic Party, there remained a vast part of the nation which still clung to the old order, maintaining their loyalty to their original parties.

The Chancellor commanded to appear before him, his past master at propaganda, Herr Goebbels; the Goebbels who had said: “Propaganda knows neither right nor wrong, neither truth nor falsehood, but only what it wants. It is the one great thought—molding and mind shaping influence.”

The conference took a sober turn. Goebbels was speaking:

“Serious as the situation might appear, Your Excellency, we shall manage it. Certain plans which I have concocted will work, I am sure.”

"What plans?” Hitler asked impatiently.

Goebbels looked cautiously around the room, as though to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

“Certain very definite propaganda plans,” he whispered. “We will curb our activities and during the next several weeks there will be only a few meetings of our party and those a mere matter of routine.

Our energies will be directed entirely toward matters of policy outside the country.”

Hitler shook his head: ‘‘I don’t quite get the reason.”

“Whatever happens must happen suddenly and be quite unexpected,” Goebbels explained. “If we concentrate on foreign policy, nobody will suspect that we are behind certain startling things which shall happen within the country.”

Hitler, weary from the exertion of the last few days, meekly agreed: “I see,” he said, “I see. But make sure that all goes well.”

Goebbels leaned back in his chair. “We have considered all possibilities, and I do not think there is the slightest leak to distract the public attention. To whatever we undertake we must give wide-spread publicity. I shall mention in all my released reports all of the men and matters now receiving your attention.” Hitler gave him a pleased, smug smile. And hammering home his advantage in having captured the imagination of the Chancellor, Goebbels went on: “I shall now get right down into the very hearts of the people and change their very natures. I shall tell them how they are to think and to feel, from this moment on.”

Hitler’s expression of extreme incredulity switched to one of utter dismay. Even such inflated ego as his could not be stretched quite that far.

“Well,” he snapped impatiently, “what is it you propose now?”

Goebbels was exultant. Here, now, was the most brilliant and dazzling of all his propaganda meteors. He continued breathlessly: “First, the Church must be discredited entirely. National Socialism shall be so strongly inoculated into the people that it will become the new religion; displace entirely all other religions—and—”

Hitler interrupted impatiently:

"Yes, yes, a new religion, that has all been decided. We will get to that in due time.”

“But,” exploded Goebbels, “my present idea goes beyond anything yet discussed.” And now, pausing to assume his most profound and impressive manner, he exploded his latest propaganda bomb.

“I propose to create A Saint here on earth for the people to worship.”

“But,” Hitler gasped, “you cannot force people to give divine veneration to any mere man of flesh and blood.”

“Quite so. I propose that this man of flesh and blood lose entirely his earthiness and become heavenly, ethereal, a living saint.”

“A man-made saint?” Hitler gulped. “Impossible!”

“I can do it,” Goebbels raced on. “I shall impose it upon their minds, pound it into their brains; press it into their hearts; root it deep in their imagination.

Yes,” he jumped up, leaned over the desk and whispered feverishly, “we need a saint, and we will make one; and our saint will be you, the Fuehrer. People must forget that you are human, think of you only as one on high; as—as”

“Revolutionary,” Hitler exclaimed completely confounded.

“Quite so,” Goebbels replied, dropping his voice to a solemn whisper. “The people must suddenly be made to stop worshiping God and begin to worship you.”

Hitler closed his eyes. The vision was great, very great. It was overwhelming.

“I see,” he whispered like a blushing girl, and modestly dropped his glance, he paused as if to quaff deep of some angel-brewed Olympian nectar, then purred ever so softly: “What is your plan? What am I supposed to do?”

“Well, you must be secluded, kept away from people, shrouded in mystery,” Goebbels solemnly answered. “From now on you will be accessible to but a few very important men. Tremendous and concentrated propaganda will make you mysterious, a sort of legend. Your words will be as Holy Gospel. Your pressure will be felt as of divine spirit, and so great and marvelous will be the miracles you perform, your name will be whispered reverently, with awe.”

A breathless silence.

Hitler flushed to the very roots of his hair.

“You, you can—can do this?” he managed to gulp.

“Yes. In peaceful times,” Goebbels rambled on, “people are smug and satisfied; we will succeed through creating unrest. We must frighten the people. We must remind them of the Bolshevik danger, day and night. We must bait the Communists, bait them and bait them. Communists are all stupid. They will take up any challenge, fall into any trap we lay for them. We shall fight them at their meetings. We shall carry the fight to the streets—”

“A good thought, a very good thought.” Hitler interrupted breathlessly. “And what else . . . ?”

"We must capture the youth,” Goebbels cried, “give them uniforms and titles. That will impress them more than empty ideals.”

“Excellent!” Hitler’s face was beaming. “I will give you a free hand.”

The new propaganda wheels began to whirl. Hitler was to be made a saint, if Goebbels’ strategies could do it. Street fights resulted. Fatal shootings and everyday meetings were broken up. The newspapers carried long stories of the attacks and counter-attacks, of actual homicides and premeditated murders. Within a few months, the list of dead on both sides rose to two hundred.

Goebbels’ supreme moment had come! He lost no time in creating his ‘Saint.’ Using the radio, he piled broadcast upon broadcast. He poured out, through his controlled newspaper, a Niagara of words. He took over huge auditoriums, halls and school rooms. Paid speakers and agitators shot forth more flaming jets of oratory.

Greater and greater gushes of propaganda spouted forth. There were resplendent pageantries with brass bands, goose-stepping regiments, flags flying from every building. Displays of pomp that could not but dazzle the simple uniform-loving German burgher.

The Nazi Party grew and continued to grow. Despairing laborers, disappointed half-wits and derelicts generally . . . all were attracted to Goebbels Roman Circus, the gold braid, the pageantry, the brass bands. They joined the party in droves. Anything would be better than what they had. Every straw is worth grabbing for. If the Nazi Party offered them nothing else but a higher morale and a new hope, despite the fact that money and jobs do not go with it, it was surcease from the travail of the moment.

It was the toss-up between Communism and Nazism, but the Nazis had the loudest bands and their shows were the most glittering. The Nazi Party landed new recruits by the hundreds.

The meetings became larger, the exhibitions more magnificent. The public was overwhelmed. Goebbels’ newest ballyhoo increased the S. A. organization to more than 250,000 men. Firing the imagination of those desperate German millions more and more with each passing day, Hitler with his promise of relief, recovery and national rehabilitation, loomed up as the only man to follow. Hundreds of thousands more pledged him their hearts, faith, loyalty—their very lives.

The trick was turned. Hitler became a super being, was put upon a plane high above mere mortal man, and about his head there was an aura of legendary mysticism. What Goebbels had promised came true. . . . His name was now spoken in whispers of awe. Hitler played this part to the letter. He remained in seclusion in his retreat in the Bavarian Alps; his public appearances became less and less frequent and seldom did any one have any personal contact with him and then only if the person was of vast importance, and the matter vital to the nation.

He summoned Goebbels for further conference.

“Tell me,” he said anxiously, “just what is your program for stabilizing the people’s attitude when this . . . this thing dies down.” He was plainly apprehensive.

“If we unite all means of news releases,” Goebbels replied, “the press, radio, motion pictures and so on, such a weapon will prove invincible. We can make the people think anything we want them to think.

“My program is all-embracing. First: all papers, periodicals, movies, theaters, radio stations, etc., must come under my direct supervision. Second: all factories, restaurants, coffee houses, offices, etc. must be provided with a sufficient number of radios, and every time the Chancellor goes on the air for a broadcast,” Goebbels banged his fist on the table, “everything must be stopped . . . people everywhere, in shops, factories, offices, must quit whatever they are doing at the time . . . and gather around the radio. The stores must be deserted,” and laughing boisterously, “the only Germans who will not hear every word, will be those Germans residing in our cemeteries.” Hitler with difficulty restrained his impulse to dance a jig. His elation knew no bounds.

“That is fine! Fine!” he exclaimed. “But,” sobering a bit, “suppose the workers resent the loss of wages if they do not work while I am speaking.”

“Ah, that is all taken care of, Your Excellency,” Goebbels replied slyly. “We will force the employers to take over that loss. Every worker must be paid just the same. And that too, will build good will among the masses.”

“You mean,” Hitler laughed openly, “that people will be paid for listening to the radio?”

Goebbels nodded vigorously.

Both indulged in actual side-slapping merriment. Hitler, clearing his throat and pulling himself together, “Tell me some more, Goebbels.”

Goebbels looked thoughtfully at his memoranda. “Third: Each wage-earner will be compelled to subscribe to our Party paper. They will be forced to attend once a week, a show approved by us. They will be commanded to attend three Party meetings each week.

“Fourth: All foreign newspapers and magazines shall be banned from the Empire.

“Fifth:”

“Wait a minute,” Hitler interrupted him, “suppose those plans antagonize the people? Remember, an election is due in only two weeks. And if we don’t please the people and get the majority . . .”

A sly smile curled Goebbels’ lips.

“We shall get it, for I propose that we burn the propaganda of all other parties, that we prohibit them from even holding meetings, that we forbid or burn all of their campaign posters and all other literature.”

This audacity jarred Hitler’s imagination. His eyes fairly bulged in amazement.

“I could do that!” he exclaimed.

“The Chancellor of Germany can do anything. And the people will like anything the Chancellor does. And . . .” He came closer and lowered his voice, “there is the Gestapo. The people will not, I think, want to have themselves classified, the good Germans on one hand and the doubtful Germans on the other.”

Hitler, fairly intoxicated by this reassurance of his omnipotence, visibly puffed out his chest and struck an attitude even more pompous.

“It shall be as you say, Minister Goebbels. But, the voting is all done in private. How will we know those who vote for the Party and those who do not?”

“You have not heard my entire plan, Your Excellency.” He came forward and stood within a few inches of the Chancellor, and glancing apprehensively around the room, he dropped his voice: “I have saved the supreme thing for the last. Something tremendous, Your Excellency. Something that will strike the country like a bolt of lightning, that will awake the people to such patriotic fervor as they have never before felt in all their lives.”

Hitler had lost all control.

“Well, tell me, tell me quick!”

“You are sure, you do give me full power to do anything and everything I wish?”

Hitler answered impatiently, his breath coming fast.

“I told you so. I mean what I say.” Sharply: “Well,” Goebbels came still closer, “something will happen, something stirring, something terrific, and just a few days before election, and it is this thing which will give us the reason we need for concealing all non-Nationalistic votes, and those resisting non-Nazi members we will throw into Concentration Camps or put before the firing squad. The Reich will then be 100% pure.”

Hitler’s imagination was completely staggered. “Well, how will you do this? Tell me,” he commanded excitedly.

“I shall inform you in time, Your Excellency,” Goebbels replied. And with a sly wink, “I do not like to bother you, you know, with preliminaries. Let me talk with Goering first and then come and lay the plans before you.” He paused and his tone gathered excitement, “It will be sensational, you may be sure.

Just think—we shall need only one night to give us our reason for putting every non-Nazi under arrest before they enter the polls to cast their votes.” And then very pensively but in a tone gathering excitement, he repeated: “Just one night—and what a night it will be!”

CHAPTER XVIII

Hitler was alone in the inner sanctum of the Chancellery. He paced the floor. He looked at his watch.

He poured a drink of water.—Again he looked at his watch. Up and down he strode, up and down.

“How long, now?” he was thinking, “since Goebbels last telephoned?”

He started toward the door, but as if influenced by his will, the door was flung open.

Heinrich appeared, but this was a different Heinrich than Hitler had ever before seen. He stood in the doorway as a man transfixed.

In his eyes, an expression of horror. His entire frame was shaking, trembling, twitching convulsively. To Hitler, who stared at him now in open-mouthed amazement, he seemed as a corpse rising from a tomb.

“Wh—a—a—a—t . . . is . . . is ... is the matter with you, Heinrich?”

Heinrich gulped, choked:

“The Reichstag is on fire!” He shouted it wildly.

“Is it? You don’t say?” was Hitler’s nonchalant reply.

Heinrich gasped at the Chancellor’s utter lack of emotion.

Then Hitler, as an actor throwing himself violently into the role he had rehearsed:

“This is horrible! Terrible! The Reichstag on fire!!! Who did it? Who committed this crime against the nation?”

Heinrich sputtered frantically: “I do not know but they captured a man! I didn’t understand—I—”

Hitler shrieked an interruption: “I know, the Communists did it, the Communists did it, I tell you.” He released more of his histrionics. “Who else but a Communist?” Shaking his fist and feigning a frenzy, “I’ll deal with them as they deserve. Call a meeting. I want to see Goering, Goebbels, the War Minister, the President of the Police and the Commander of my Special Guard. Quick! Tell them all I command them to appear before me at once.”

So saying, he pulled open the door, and violently shoved Heinrich through. “Go get me all the particulars. Tell everybody. Run!”

Heinrich sped down the corridor.

Hitler turned, lifted the receiver of his private telephone, ordered his car. Some ten minutes later he stepped into it and commanded: “Drive me to the fire.”

It was surprising, the speed with which Goering, Goebbels, Rosenberg and Roehm arrived on the scene, particularly when all had been previously campaigning over the country until just this very moment. Could it have been that they had a premonition that the Reichstag would catch fire, even to the precise minute that the conflagration would begin? In any event, they all arrived and almost together. Also, by unanimous intuition, a verdict was reached that out of Germany’s tens of millions of citizens, this dire plot could only have been instigated by one man, and he, Herman Von der Lubbe, who happened to be a very old, very destitute half wit. Surely not in such a brain could the entire wicked conspiracy have been concocted. And undoubtedly, old Herman had accomplices, at least one thousand. So immediately that man and many others were arrested. And by further strange coincidence, all of these thousands of warrants of arrests had already been made out, ready to serve at any moment, even while the building was burning.

Among the thousands later thrown into prison were Communists, Socialists, and Pacifists. Concentration Camps and jails all over Germany were filled with these political villains.

A reign of terror followed the fire. Hundreds were murdered in cold blood. Others tortured by sexual sadists. But this was a reign of terror different from others . . . this one was organized in advance and everything went off like clockwork.

Next morning’s papers brought sensational vivid descriptions of the burning of the Reichstag. Glaring headlines told the nation of the vile plot, that the Government had positive proof that it was a Communist who had struck the match that ignited the great building. Editorials screamed, radios blared forth the news of the Red sabotage, that only the alertness of the Government had crushed the revolution before it had time to gain headway.

All the leaders of the Communist Party were taken into custody that very night. The papers printed a full list of names, asserting all were equally guilty. Strangely too, all arrested were political leaders, members of the Parliament. Hitler personally participated in the revolutionary movement following the fire. And by still another strange coincidence, all the higher-ups were political foes of the Chancellor. Naturally, there could be no question of their guilt.

Hitler now had his revenge upon his foes in one full swoop.

The papers, of course, printed nothing not authentic, all of the news coming directly from the Minister of Propaganda himself. Likewise, the state-controlled radio broadcast only facts, because all that news came directly from Dr. Goebbels.

In Berlin, arrests of suspects in the Reichstag fire plot continued. And in outlying districts thousands more suddenly disappeared from their homes. Raids were widespread.

The people began to rebel against this far-reaching police net. Mass meetings were held. The populace at large refused to accept the stories released by Dr. Goebbels’ Propaganda Bureau. A whispering campaign started. Rumors began to fly thick and fast that there was a secret subway passage leading from Goering’s house directly to the Reichstag, and that Goering, perhaps, knew a bit more about the fire than was printed. A new title was bestowed upon him, that of “The Modern Nero,” in commemoration of the other Nero who, some two thousand years before, was said to have fiddled while a certain other conflagration raged.

There were those also, so bold as to intimate that there might be some slight connection between the fire and the coming general election, then but a few days off.

Wide-spread notices were now sent out post-haste, to prevent all meetings, speeches and gatherings of every sort except those authorized by the Chancellor, the police keeping eyes and ears alert for anyone who might give even the slightest sign not entirely favorable.

Hundreds more were arrested, but the time before the Election was too short for a complete terrorization of the population, with the alarming result that on election night the returns from the polls showed that only 43% had cast their votes for Hitler.

The resulting excitement was terrific. The Chancellor and all of his Ministers and Party chieftains were first dumbfounded, then infuriated. They swore and raged. Hitler was urged to have the election annulled, to disband the Reichstag, not even to let it convene and to declare a “dejure” dictatorship. But Hitler, shrewd enough to see that such a drastic step would not only express a fear of the Reich but be tantamount to a confession of guilt, replied:

“The German people like legality. They shall have it. We can’t run the risk of compromising ourselves again.”

He sent post-haste for Herr Hugenberg, leader of the German National Party.

Hugenberg and Hitler went into secret session.

The result: the two parties agreed on coalition—a tremendous, momentous decision which perhaps more than anything else, saved the face of Hitler and gave him his firm grasp upon the Chancellorship.

With the German Nationals swinging over to Hitler, the second election gave him 52% of the votes, and victory!

Hitler was enormously pleased and relieved, and in appreciation appointed Hugenberg Minister of Agriculture.

   *            *           *           *          *

Another raid was now ordered by Hitler upon the Parliament.

The Political Police arrested 200 of the newly-elected members. And, again by strange coincidence, none of those arrested were members of the Nazi Party.

Two hundred seats were now empty!

In this artificially reduced Parliament, Hitler and Hugenberg now commanded a majority of two-thirds and with that power came also the power to amend the Constitution.

There was no debate. There was no one to oppose. The entire Parliament was now wholly and unqualified browbeaten and pro-Nazi.

Adolf Hitler now became the legal Dictator of Germany, whereas before he was only an appointee.

As to Hugenberg, who contributed so materially to Hitler’s elevation to power, history records that very shortly after the election, Hugenberg’s portfolio as Minister of Agriculture was voided and he was tossed out of the Cabinet entirely and replaced by a Nazi. The German National Party of which Hugenberg was once head was disbanded and Hugenberg vanished from the political scene.

   *            *           *           *          *

There now came into being the most terroristic of all the new Bureaus . . . the Gestapo ... an organization of secret police that spread its vast network of spies all over the Empire.

Headed by Heinrich Himmler, its merciless tyranny held the entire populace in a perpetual grip of fear—cowed, subjugated, deathly afraid even so much as to breathe the mildest disagreement with anything connected with the new order. Thousands of Gestapo spies kept close scrutiny upon every person in every walk of life—those who were not registered members of the Party, in the office, in the factory, in the home.

Heinrich Himmler was called “The Man of a Thousand Eyes and Ears.” He had the power to break into homes, tamper with the mails, tap private telephones. His secret agents went among the people collecting scandal and gossip whether true or not, then set snares and pitfalls and the tiniest slip of the tongue led to instant arrest. In the Gestapo lay the real secret of the grip that the Nazi party had upon the populace . . . the grip of fear. Every person’s liberty, their very life, was in constant jeopardy.

Every third or fourth man or woman in Germany today, if not actually a spy, is suspected of working for the Gestapo. It is believed that every telephone operator is a Gestapo agent and every telephone conversation is listened to. Particularly are those suspected who have influential relatives abroad. Their every move is watched, their every letter is read. If the man “marked” does not write to his relatives abroad, the Gestapo calls him in and demands to know why he does not write. When he does write, they call him in to ask what he means by such and such expressions, they having confiscated the letter and read it.

Human nature was thus utterly demoralized and disintegrated. Sons became spies upon their own fathers and mothers. A sister would unconsciously turn in her own brother to the Gestapo and vice versa. Youths who previously had been wholesome and forthright and loyal to principle and honor, now became veritable beasts. Anything to curry favor with the ruling powers and gain advantages. All sentiment and filial feeling was blasted from them. No means were too low nor too degraded in order to gain influence with the authorities!

The Gestapo is the ever watchful eye and listening ear of the present regime. Its campaign of terrorism knows no let-up. It is the inquisition which envelops Germans in an orgy and nightmare, it is the force that robs the people of all freedom of conscience, all liberty of thought. The atrocities committed by this secret, evil and implacable power will never be half known by the outside world. The Gestapo has absolute power of life and death; men and women are arrested secretly, tried secretly and, in many cases, executed secretly.

School teachers force their children to write essays on topics such as “What do our parents think of our Leader,” or they may be commanded to “repeat the conversation held in your home during the dinner time.” These essays are then turned over to the secret police for examination and where it happens that parents are arrested not then knowing why, they later learn that it was their own children who unknowingly had denounced them to the authorities.

In this way the Nazi Government spread fear and distrust into the very center of family life. Parents dared not speak openly in the presence of their own children. Friends became afraid to talk to friends. Business associates became suspicious of each other, fearful lest they might make some casual remark which might be construed as disloyal. Telephone users composed elaborate codes to assure positive identification of those to whom they spoke.

CHAPTER XIX

It was then that Hitler, the Chancellor, set about creating, an entirely new regime; to be cut exactly to his own pattern with no one to stay his hand. Right and left he issued his commands. Conferences were held throughout the day and far into the night. Behind closed doors. The utmost secrecy.

He had to deal with affairs of state; set his diplomatic machine; spread his propaganda nets; reorganize the army. A program tremendous in its scope and striking at the very foundation of the German constitution.

First to appear before him was Schacht. Schacht, the authority on finance and economics; a man ambitious, shrewd, a versatile and constructive force; a man whose enemies both hated and feared him; and he had many enemies, particularly among the influential members of the Nazi Party to whom he appeared a capitalistic menace.

Hitler, knowing nothing of economics, was forced to seek the counsel of Schacht, looking upon him as a veritable wizard who could accomplish miracles in the manipulation of high finance.

Hitler got right down to the object of the conference.

“Your stand in the matter of the Young Plan suggests to me that you are dissatisfied with Germany’s position among nations. Am I right?”

“Quite right,” Schacht replied cautiously.

“I am resolved to change this position.” Hitler continued, working himself into a frenzy, “To make Germany again the leading power on the continent, to give her a powerful army and navy and regain for her her colonies, no matter whether France and England like it or not.”

Schacht answered with no less fervor, “For the sake of Germany I hope you will succeed, Your Excellency.”

“Are you willing to help me to succeed?” Hitler riveted his gaze upon Schacht.

“To the limit of all of my capacities,” came the answer, firm and quick.

Hitler continued: “There’s only one minister who knows all strings of national and international economy . . . and knows how to pull them. That is you.”

Schacht accepted the compliment with a bow.

“I should like for you,” proceeded Hitler, “to take over the Ministry of Economics in addition to your position as president of the Reichsbank. That will give you all the power necessary to carry out our plans.”

Schacht feigned surprise: “Before I make my decision, may I be so bold as to inquire just what plans you have in mind?”

Hitler, undecided whether this was impudence, poor loyalty or really a legitimate question went on to say: “I shall summon the Minister of War Armaments and the commanding generals and talk with them regarding complete rearmament and immediately thereafter we shall no longer acknowledge the Versailles or any other treaty. Before these matters can be consummated, however, we shall need material, enormous quantities of war material. To buy that, we need money. It is the money that I expect you to provide, Herr Doktor.”

Schacht’s reply was to the point:

“That, your Excellency, will not be an easy task. We do not have much gold. The surplus and foreign trade we need, to pay interest on our foreign loans and bonds—”

Hitler quickly dropped all formality and hurled back at Schacht: “Do you mean to tell me that we cannot rearm because we have to pay usurious interest to foreigners?”

Schacht, now completely at ease: “That is the situation, sir.”

“But we would have enough, if we refused to pay,” Hitler thundered.

“Not enough, but sufficient to start with.”

Hitler’s face grew grave. “From now on, we will pay not one more mark on that account.”

“But you cannot evade it,” was Schacht’s cold response.

“Who says I cannot? Who can force me to pay?” Hitler cried theatrically. “America won’t come over and make war on us if we do not pay. Neither will any other country attempt it.”

Schacht, unable to conceal his admiration of this daring attitude:

“But what of our reputation, our prestige, our pride?”

“Technicalities! Bah!” was the nonchalant rejoinder. “I leave the procedure to you. You shall have a free hand in dealing with all matters economic and financial. The political aspect of the situation, Goering will handle.”

So saying, he rose:

“Are you ready to take over the task? I shall make you virtually an economic dictator.”

Schacht still hesitated. “The ideas of your party and those of my own, I regret to say, Your Excellency, do not always conform. I must remind you that there may be difficulties.”

Hitler only smiled: “You are responsible only to me. I trust you and I need you. I shall back you to the limit against any person, any power! Even against our own party. Are you satisfied?”

Schacht nods: “I am. And I shall not mix in party politics as long as they do not interfere with me.” “Don’t let that worry you.” Hitler was elated. “I am glad you have complied with my request. There is one more matter.”

Schacht leaned forward, in suspense.

“You’ll have to reorganize the whole of industry. Gradually the entire German industrialism will have to serve only one purpose—armaments. No other considerations will be of any importance! Neither the different ideas of the manufacturers nor the restrictions of the consumers. You will have to reorganize the consumers too.”

Schacht’s eyes widened. “That sounds almost like socialization.”

“That is a matter of viewpoint.” Hitler shrugged. “Goebbels’ propaganda will convert the people to our viewpoint, the State comes first. The State, in emergency, can command private ownership; can put owners under its supervision. It is all very simple. Do you not see it now?”

Schacht was forced to agree.

Hitler beamed:

“You have all the freedom and are answerable only to me. Armament is the sole objective. No consideration as to the wishes of individuals, be they producers or consumers. And not one more mark of interest to be paid on foreign debts!”

“I understand,” was Schacht’s solemn reply.

Hitler extended his hand:

“Thank you, Herr Doktor. And don’t worry. Propaganda takes care of everything.”

He pressed the buzzer.

“Heinrich,” he said, “show Doktor Schacht the private way to Voss Street.”

To Schacht, a twinkle in his eye: “A precaution. Those newspaper vultures. They swarm the front entrance.”

Schacht bowed and departed.

As a result of these many conferences, Hitler’s orders were put into effect at once.

Overnight Germany was cut off from abroad. No German was to leave the country without special permission. Repudiation of foreign debts went into effect at once. The entire world was stunned at the audacity of it. In the capitals concerned, anger mounted to a blazing rage, followed by a swift change to fear when it became known that Germany intended scrapping all international treaties in their entirety and would immediately start rearmament on a prewar scale. A bombshell! At the very moment when all other powers of Europe were sitting in conferences late into the night, pleading, reasoning, arguing for peace in Europe, Germany was fomenting a fear of a new war. From this astounding threatened military intervention, possibilities of international complications grew more and more grave hour after hour.

Every other nation protested, but Hitler ignored every such protest. With utter defiance, he proceeded to speed up militarization with every force at his command, taking full advantage of the fact that other nations, to prepare for war, must go through a long rigmarole of military procedure and enforced delay not necessary to Germany.

The propaganda machines now swung into action more vigorously than ever.

Herr Goebbels was commanded to take the theme, “Peace” and shout “Peace” from the high heavens . . . there must be thousands of meetings indoors and outdoors. “Peace” must be shouted over the radio and stressed by every newspaper in the empire.

“Germany wants peace.

“Germany wants friendship with every other nation.

“Germany’s rearmament program is for defense only.

“Germany does not wish to alarm any other nation.

“Germany wants only to be prepared in the event of attack.”

By shouting “Peace,” Hitler thought to give himself a good face, to create the impression, not only in the minds of Germans, but throughout the entire world of the “virtue” of his repudiation of the treaties and his program for rearmament, wishing to make it appear that Germany was the downtrodden nation, the victim, the pitiful, pathetic, weak, little nation that all the other nations of Europe were picking on and had ulterior designs upon . . . and were actually planning to destroy. And that therefore it became imperative and only right that Germany take measures to protect herself against momentarily threatened invasion.

German industries hummed as never before. The industrial activity was terrific. Not only did the great steel factories speed up to twenty-four hour production, but the owners were forced to enlarge their plants. Even to build new ones and no consideration was given either to financial aspect or economic justification.

Every Ministry hurled its orders at industry. Each threatened dire penalties to the industrialists if those orders were not obeyed to turn out more and more war material.

But then a stumbling block. Production became more and more difficult because unskilled labor had to be rushed in to take the place of skilled labor. And later these thousands of unskilled laborers were discharged, arrested and imprisoned because previously they had allied themselves with unions or opposing parties. New workers were selected, not according to experience or skill but solely because they had belonged to the Nazi Party for at least a year previous.

Levies upon industry for party funds and Government taxes grew by leaps and bounds. Profits were impossible. Sound commercial calculation was no more the basis of business; it was simply a case of, if a manufacturer could not get the money out of his business, taking it out of his own pocket, or borrowing it.

Industrialists and merchants now lived in a nightmare. Their commercial pains were excruciating. Committees were organized and only those appointed to serve who knew Hitler personally; on the assumption that because these men had vigorously supported him on his way up he would feel some obligation and relieve in some slight degree, their financial and economic pressure.

To all, Hitler turned a deaf ear. Not one was granted an audience. To Heinrich, he issued a blanket order to “Throw them out!” His all-consuming thought was to reap the maximum in rearmament material.

“I don’t wish to see those moneybags,” he shouted. “They are concerned only with making profits for themselves and their stockholders. Throw them out.”

Bewildered and despairing, the dismayed delegates, in sheer desperation went to the Vice-Chancellor, Von Papen. The fantastic truth then came out; that Von Papen had been ignored by Hitler. Never had he even been told of the decrees concerning which the delegates were now protesting. His ignorance in all these matters was absolute. Except for the very first meeting of the cabinet, the day he was nominated, Von Papen had not once been called into conference.

Hitler had all along made a mere figurehead of him.

Von Papen flew into a rage.

“The Chancellor cannot do that to me,” he cried. “He owes his position to me and to you gentlemen. He can’t refuse to see the Vice-Chancellor.”

So saying, with a sudden surge of courage he rushed to Hitler.

Hitler deliberately kept Von Papen waiting a full half hour. Then, to show his complete mastery of the situation, he extended his hand and greeted him in most cordial fashion:

“How do you do, Herr Von Papen.”

Von Papen’s grim countenance repelled further cordiality.

Hitler coolly asked:

“What can I do for you?”

Von Papen sputtered: “You refused to see a delegation from the Rhine industry.”

Hitler’s tone now was not friendly:

“I had no time to see them. What about it, Herr Von Papen?”

Von Papen, taken aback by this defiant tone, became meek: “They complained that the new economic policy has ruined their industries and these industries are the very backbone of Germany.”

Hitler replied sharply: “I am concerned solely with the good of our Fatherland and not with anybody’s moneybags.” And with rising anger: “They should be grateful to me. I saved them from Bolshevism.” Von Papen’s lips trembled. He could feel the Vice-Chancellor’s mantle dropping from his shoulders. In a final assumption of boldness he dared to reply: “They claim there isn’t much difference between Bolshevism and National Socialism now. They are deprived of their property in either situation. They are calling it Brown-Bolshevism.”

Hitler was enraged, his eyes shot hot sparks of fire. “So they claim there is no difference.” His anger reached the bursting point: “Tell them from me that if I ever hear such a remark again I shall give them a chance to think it over, in quiet and seclusion.”

Von Papen was lost. “Herr Hitler,” he exclaimed helplessly. “My God, what has happened? They are our friends. Have you forgotten? They helped you. Only a few months ago, they could, had they wished, turned their resources and influences entirely against you . . . and . . .” Hitler jumped from his chair. He was livid with rage.

“Listen to me, Herr Von Papen. The time is over when one can bargain with me. My resources are Germany, and I shall use them. No one has the right to prevent me. That is treason. I have set myself a goal. No one will stop me. If they attempt to stop me, I shall crush them.” Von Papen rose weakly, crushed, feeling that he had been dismissed. In utter chagrin and shame he mumbled:

“They didn’t mean anything wrong, Your Excellency. They need only time to get accustomed to this new, new tempo.”

Hitler thundered back. “So that is the only excuse you have for foolishness. I will never take that excuse a second time.”

Von Papen summoned courage for one last stand.

“Isn’t there anything I can tell them, just to cheer them up? May I not say that these rulings are only temporary matters . . .”

Hitler thundered: “Tell them this; there are many camps in Germany teaching people how to behave in the new Reich. Tell them to obey or take the consequences.” He paused and looked Von Papen squarely in the eye: “And you, Herr Von Papen, I should advise you to keep away from those people and not to try to interfere yourself in any government decree. It will be better for you.”

Von Papen was aghast. His lower jaw trembled, he bit his lip and gazed helplessly at the floor.

Hitler bowed coldly and, showing no more respect to his Vice-Chancellor than he would to his chauffeur, snapped:

“There are people waiting outside. Good day, Herr Von Papen.”

“Good day, Your Excellency.”

Von Papen left the room as a whipped dog, with the conviction that he no longer was Von Papen, but only a humble servant to his master.

CHAPTER XX

On this particular day, the Chancellor seemed strangely to have no mind for affairs of state and was in a peculiarly reflective mood upon matters personal and intimate to himself.

He pushed the buzzer on his desk summoning his adjutant. When he appeared, Hitler greeted him in a tone gentle and friendly, which Heinrich had not heard since they had enjoyed the intimacy of Landsberg Prison.

“Sit down, Heinrich, I want to ask you something,” Hitler invited gently. “You have seen certain men pass in and out of this room. Whom do you think I can trust?”

“Well, I don’t know—I—” Heinrich shifted uncomfortably.

“I shall answer that question for you, Heinrich. I don’t know anyone I can trust. Each one has his own personal ambition. He works solely for himself, not for me. For the time being it is advantageous to stand with me; but let the day come when those men discover they can gain more by turning against me and they will leave me and betray me.

“Now, they use me as a step-ladder for their own careers. But each one is constantly seeking to get some power over me, with which he might under threat blackmail me for favors.”

Heinrich, flabbergasted at this intimate confidence, could only mumble:

“I am sorry it is like that, sir.”

“Heinrich, I’m going to tell you something I would not tell anyone else on earth.”

“You know you can trust me, Fuehrer,” Heinrich responded with deep feeling.

Hitler became grave.

“This, Heinrich, concerns my private life.” He paused and looked solemnly at the floor. “There is a certain man I have reason to fear more than anyone else; a man who could actually ruin me; who is in possession of certain papers, documents concerning my past life which must never be made public.” He became tense. “Some money transactions in which I was involved years ago in Munich.

“I have reason to believe that this fellow intends to flee the country and sell these incriminating documents to my enemies abroad; an expose that not only would be disastrous to me personally but a national misfortune, reflecting grave discredit upon the Party.” He bent over and lowered his tone. “I must prevent this. I must send someone to get that man at once to prevent him from escaping across the border.” Heinrich’s consternation was at the bursting point: “Yes, we must—we must get those documents,” he stammered. He was all sympathy and eagerness to assist, and on the verge of volunteering, himself.

Hitler interrupted his thoughts.

“There is only one man, Heinrich, who fears me sufficiently and who would not dare betray me and that is that cowardly and spineless homosexual, Heines.” He took a turn up and down the room in deep meditation. “Yes, it shall be Heines. There is no one else. Get him. Get Heines. Tell him to lose no time—to come here at once.”

The weight on Hitler’s mind and the consequent pressure upon his nerves was stretching his endurance to the breaking point. He had paced up and down; miles it would seem, and every few minutes he had looked at his watch. Ages it seemed since Heinrich left to summon Heines. Actually it had been but half an hour. His troubled brain, the terrible apprehension he felt that Bell might even now have escaped, was torturing him. If only the notes of his footfalls would conquer the stillness. If only there was someone to talk to—anyone. The situation grew unbearable. If only Heines would come! Never before had he suffered inwardly so much. Never before had he so much at stake. Heines’ failure to get to Bell would mean not only personal disgrace but political doom. Little did the outside world know what conflict raged this moment within the mind and soul of Adolf Hitler.

And then Heines arrived. This man whom the Fates had decreed should hold Adolf Hitler’s political destiny in the palm of his hand. Heines, to whom a Chancellor of Germany must entrust his most sacred and dangerous personal secret.

Incongruous. Fantastic. For not so long ago the position of these two men was weirdly reversed. It was Heines who held the power. Heines, the jailor. Hitler, the prisoner.

And Hitler as he eyed this man before him, who once played this strange and bizarre role in his life, was perhaps a bit resentful and his greeting of him was quite casual.

“How do you do,” he said stiffly, permitting only the limpest of handshakes.

But Heines on the other hand remained true to his homosexual type and became quite emotional. “Oh, Mr. Hitler,” he twittered, “I am so perfectly thrilled to see you; and in your beautiful salon; it is positively adorable; ravishing—I—”

Hitler silenced him irritably:

“All right, I am glad to see you. You may sit down.”

Heines, rolling his eyes and tossing his head effeminately, coyly took his seat.

Hitler glared at him:

“And I must remind you—not to ‘Mr. Hitler’ any more, Heines. We are not in—in Landsberg now.”

Heines flushed. “Oh please excuse me, Your Excellency.”

Hitler, brusquely:

“Heines, I have sent for you to discuss a matter—” He bent forward and lowered his tone, “a matter extremely confidential. You could keep a confidence?”

“Why, the very idea—I mean—that is—why you can trust me, of course,” he stuttered in consternation.

“Yes, I believe I can trust you.” Hitler’s tone carried a threat.

“Just anything, sir,” Heines lisped, “just anything you want me to do.”

“I am going to send you,” Hitler bent over, “upon a very delicate mission; a mission for me personally.” He eyed him quizzically. “You would dare do anything; go to any lengths? You are sure you have no fear?”

“Fear! Me? Mercy, no!” Heines continued to twitter.

“Listen closely.” Hitler replied in tense tone and glanced about the room: “It becomes necessary for me now to divulge the name of a certain man to you; a man whose name I have never mentioned to anyone before. Do you understand that you are being entrusted with a very grave and a very personal confidence?” He riveted his gaze upon him. “Answer me; I want to be sure.”

“Why, of course—” he stammered.

Hitler bent over still closer:

“The name is Bell.” He paused and again looked fearfully about the room and his voice became a whisper, “Dr. Arthur Bell. Now, listen carefully; this man is preparing to leave this country forever. I want you to get on his trail as fast as you can and stop at nothing in apprehending him.”

Heines fidgeted nervously. This weighty confidence overwhelmed him.

“I’ll get to him—I’ll—But what do you want me to do—when I—?”

Hitler interrupted impatiently:

“This man Bell is in possession of certain papers that bear my name. I want you to recover them, using any means necessary, stopping at nothing. Do you understand? I must have those papers. I do not care how you get them.”

Heines bristled with importance.

“Why, certainly I will get you the papers. Indeed I will. Nothing will stop me.”

Hitler’s tone was steely.

“Very well. Here are your instructions.” He handed him a memorandum. “When you recover the papers, I command you to seal them immediately; you are not to read them.” He drew close to him and with a scowl that threatened evil consequences, “Should it ever come out that you know more than you should know, I’ll quickly put you before a firing squad.”

Heines, quaking with terror, wiped his ashen forehead:

‘‘Oh, Your Excellency,” stammering convulsively, “you mustn’t talk—” gulping, “talk like that to me!”

Hitler, coldly: “You are sure you wish to undertake this mission? You know the consequences if you fail?”

Heines, completely cowed:

“I shall not fail.” The memorandum shook in his hand. “I’ll find this Dr. Bell and bring you back what you want—”

“If you fulfill your mission, Heines, you can name your own reward. Now go and study that memorandum carefully. It describes Bell and tells you where you will find him,” with a shudder, “if you are not too late.” Then striding to the door, his manner stiff and formal: “That will be all, Heines. You will leave at once.”

Heines turned and put out his hand. Hitler ignored it.

“Good day. Complete your task and report back to me as soon as possible.”

CHAPTER XXI

“My dear Heinrich,” Herr Schmidt wrote, “Your silence, despite everything I’ve written to you of a father’s heartache and need for his boy, remains a mystery. All that I ask of you is a line or two advising me of your well-being. Of course, it is totally unnecessary for you to make any explanation of your present attitude but I had hoped for some message from you telling me that you do think of your father once in a while. And, as you no doubt have guessed, I still cling tenaciously to the idea that some day you will come back to Gronau where your father needs you so badly. Time passes swiftly, my son, and I am no longer a young man. The actual labor involved in getting out the paper each day has become such a burden for my shoulders that I spend hours in praying to God that you will come back to help me. I do not ask you to be disloyal to yourself or to your best interests—whatever they may be. But my heart cries out for my boy and I’d be a happy father indeed to be able to welcome you home with no questions asked and no fault found. If only I might see you—even for a few minutes—just to have you tell me how you have progressed!

“The Zeitung is not making any money these days and it is beginning to look as though I will have to give up the fight soon and shut down. There is not much advertising to help us. All our friends and neighbors are suffering from the reconstruction and some of the new government regulations seem a little harsh to us. Then, too, there are other rulings which we find difficult to understand at all. There is no question of any rebelliousness on our part—please understand that. We have faith that the government is trying to do what is right and best for the people. We get the Berlin, Hanover, Munich and Dresden papers which are all favorable to the government. Perhaps the Nazi party here in Gronau is a little unpopular because it is not composed of the better elements. On many occasions they act like nothing more than hoodlums—they make public disturbances and are viciously insulting to some of our people. No doubt it is in your power to wield a fine influence—being on the inside of things, as you are—and I for one am certain that the confidence which the Chancellor must place in you will inspire you to really worthy deeds. We note with alarm here in Gronau that there is racial discrimination in Berlin but we hope that God in his wisdom will guide those misconceived individuals who attempt to discriminate against any of His creatures.

“Well, I do not want to be too serious. I’m sure you will want news of some of your friends. As usual there is not very much in this direction. Doctor Mendelsohn is working day and night at the hospital. He waited so long because of the rush of the voluntary work which he contributed after the war, that he has not been able to regain much of his private practice and financially they are very hard hit. Peter, however, has been helping him with the little that he makes teaching. At the moment Frau Mendelsohn is confined to her bed with a bad attack of rheumatism but the doctor is hopeful that she will be better very soon.

“Everyone else is well and wishes to be remembered to you, especially Pastor Miller and your two old teachers, Munther and Meiser. They are all extremely interested in your career and speak of you with the highest praise.

“I’d like very much to be able to visit you where you are if you find it impossible to come to Gronau. It’s terribly difficult for me not to see you or hear from you. Isn’t it possible for you to send me just a postcard so that I will not feel you have forgotten me completely? I think of you all the time especially when I work in the garden. Everything is so lovely now in the spring. I’m sure you would enjoy sitting here again among the flowers and playing with our new dog, Spot. He’s an excellent police breed and extremely intelligent. He accompanies August (who has been made our new typesetter) when August makes the morning deliveries and he is now so familiar with the route that we momentarily expect him to call our subscribers by name.

“Gronau is the same old place. The town treasury hasn’t much money so there is no building going on. But there is still an excellent community spirit and we all manage to get along somehow. I’m afraid I haven’t changed much either in all these years. I still write my own editorials and say whatever I think. I guess I haven’t lost very much of my enthusiasm for them, as I still manage to win compliments on them from time to time. Can you write to me in detail about some of the new reconstruction ideas which the Third Reich is planning for us in the smaller towns? I’d like to be able to scoop the Hanover and Heldesheim papers on this.

“Well, my son, I’ll not bother you any longer as I know you must have great affairs of state on your mind. However, I do want you to know that we all send you love and the kindest thoughts and wishes. Perhaps some day you will understand how a father’s heart can ache for his son and then you will write to me. I’m not finding fault with you, my boy; I’m honestly proud of your present high position. I feel certain that the Chancellor has made a wise choice in you.

“With love from, “Papa.”

Heinrich spent so much time reading and rereading his father’s letter that it was necessary for him to dress in great haste when the time came for his daily appearance in Hitler’s offices. The letter was lying out on his desk as he prepared to leave his apartment. Out of a sense of orderliness he swept it into the basket in one swift stroke. Then he closed the windows, lowered the shades and walked downstairs to the street.

CHAPTER XXII

Concurrent with the growth of the Nazis in the smaller European countries was the growth of these minority groups in the greater democracies themselves. Into every corner of the world, wherever even a handful of Germans lived, Nazism spread its tentacles. Parading at first as loyal nationalists under the flag of each country in which they existed, these groups attracted members to themselves by the promise of the overthrow of international Jewish Communism and, incompatibly enough, the simultaneous overthrow of international Jewish capitalism. The Nazi appeal was limited by its battle cry to that small group of people in almost every country of the world who were unable to see through the hypocrisy, which Hitler preached. Once these limited groups had found their way to the Nazi camp, the Nazi disguise was thrown off and they operated openly toward the end of tearing down whatever national flag existed and raising in its place the Nazi swastika. The danger to the democracies which existed sprang directly from the nature of their constitutions, which allowed the Nazis full power to grow and expand under the guaranteed free speech of each country. The fact that Nazi growth and expansion would eventually lead to the end of this free speech and of the democratic constitutions themselves did not prevent the democracies from functioning as such. It was this leniency which Hitler foresaw and took advantage of.

With each victory on foreign soil, the Leader’s strength at home increased. In fact, at any time when his position of power seemed to be in danger from within, Hitler strained all his efforts toward gaining new outside victories in order to divert the German people from their own economic insecurity and distress at the hands of their Fuehrer.

To his immediate followers and loyal friends, Hitler quickly presented the rewards of the Nazi victory at home. Almost at the beginning of his rule he called for his lieutenants and divided among them the spoils. To Julius Streicher, he gave Franconia to govern as he pleased within the Nazi framework: and to Heinrich Schmidt, he gave the province of Gronau. His other close followers as well were taken care of in a similar manner.

CHAPTER XXIII

The shock which was suffered in Berlin and all of Prussia when Hitler seized power over night was felt only slightly in the placid routine of Gronau’s daily life. A few high officials were removed, a few organizations were dissolved and replaced by new ones; but on the whole the change in the government made no radical difference in the life of this small Bavarian district. Gronau was primarily a Catholic state and its people had always looked with distrust toward any changes emanating from Protestant Berlin. Although Berlin was the capital of the Reich and the nerve center of all Prussia, it had never to any marked degree molded the thoughts or the habits of the people of Gronau.

The few stragglers who stepped out of line to join the ranks of the Gronau local National Socialist party had at no time been taken seriously by the majority of the citizens and were for the most part looked upon with very little, if any, respect.

Even after Hitler became Chancellor and, later, when his position was established as all powerful, the Gronau citizens continued to refer to the Nazis as “professional politicians.” If the Nazi party in Gronau showed a rise in the number of its members, it was only because the party loyalty of these recruits consisted in the payment of their initiation fees and their monthly dues. Beyond that, their loyalty for the most part lagged. If the uniforms of the S. A. were responsible for an influx into their midst of a fresh group of youngsters, it was not because the population at large granted respect to the uniforms but because the uniforms themselves lent a new self–importance to the temperamentally volatile youth.

The old political contingent managed to maintain its status quo and resisted the lure of the new order with its strange symbols and bizarre slogans.

As leader of this old contingent Herr Schmidt reassured his citizens from time to time in the columns of the Zeitung.

“Things are not so bad, after all,” he wrote. “Our people have a sound instinct and a fine practical mind. It will be impossible for Hitler to disregard entirely the strong opposition of the vast majority of the German people.”

There were many in Gronau, as there were throughout the whole of Germany, who came to doubt the existence of any basis for such optimism as Herr Schmidt expressed. As Hitler increased in power, Doctor Mendelsohn was perhaps one of the most skeptical. Although he never spoke of politics if he could avoid the subject, his wife’s instinctive anxiety made itself felt in him. A casual acquaintance might not have taken notice of the taciturnity in which he enveloped himself, but his family and friends noted with dismay the new look of anxious bewilderment which came over him at every mention of Hitler’s name or every time he held his grandson Karl in his arms.

Eventually, as reports trickled through regarding the reign of terror which spread quickly over Germany this look of bewilderment changed to open despair. The news of the appointment of Streicher and others struck terror into the hearts of thousands.

But when Heinrich’s appointment was relayed to Gronau, the wave of anxiety which had engulfed the people of this small province was automatically lifted. Of all the men in Germany Heinrich Schmidt, the old man’s son, had been chosen to govern them! Everywhere joy greeted this announcement. Everyone who knew Heinrich as a youth remembered him as upright and honest, as one of their very own sons. With sighs of relief they thanked Providence for having saved them from the brutal treatment they might have received at the hands of a stranger.

Although there had been rumors of an existing estrangement between Heinrich and his father there was not one person in Gronau who ventured to ask any questions about it, out of respect for Herr Schmidt, who remained to them the first citizen of their town.

On the day of Heinrich’s announced arrival to take over his new duties as Governor, the entire populace turned out to welcome him. The railroad station was jammed. Not since Kaiser Wilhelm visited Gronau for the army maneuvers in 1912 had the little town staged such a magnificent reception.

Storefronts along the main streets were dressed in festive decoration. Flags fluttered from the rooftops of the public buildings and private homes. A huge swastika banner was displayed prominently at the little railroad station and was flanked on either side by the white and blue colors of Bavaria and the black, white and red of the Reich. A detachment of picked Storm Troopers took a position of importance along the platform and prominent and obscure citizens alike crowded the station to be among the first to extend their greetings to the new Governor. Notable among the absentees were Heinrich’s own family and his lifelong friends, the Mendelsohns. The decision of these two families not to appear at the official reception was dictated by two desires—to avoid publicity and, more important, to wait for some lead from Heinrich himself as to the nature of their future relationship.

As the train steamed into the station at last and came to a stop, an S. A. commander gave a signal to a brass band and the strains of the “Horst Wessel” song floated out over the crowd.

Heinrich Schmidt was among the first to alight from the steps of the train. At the sight of him, surrounded by a few resplendently uniformed officers, the enthusiasm of the crowd was released in a great, unanimous roar of welcome. Hands went up all over in the stiff Nazi salute.

Heinrich Schmidt’s glance swept over the people before him and picked out many familiar faces. Almost instinctively he realized that those closest to him were ironically missing from the group who bade him welcome. He stiffened himself and determined to show no emotion. In extreme self–consciousness, however, he moved under the thousands of curious eyes which were directed toward him and mechanically grasped the few hands extended to him in greeting. The peculiar feeling of terror which had gripped him throughout the long train ride home seemed to tighten its hold on him now. It was a mixed reaction of pride in his present position and a terrible fear that he would be unable to perform the stern duties of his office which involved a degree of ruthlessness personally dictated to him by his Chancellor. Odd little memories cropped up in his mind, memories which had been stifled for years. Perfectly unrelated incidents and people marched through his head with amazing rapidity and refused to be beaten back by Heinrich’s rigid training as a Nazi. Every building, every landmark, every face was familiar to him here. Many of these people once had been his intimate friends. He had loved them and they had loved him. He was home again in Gronau.

How many times, he wondered, during all the years which had passed since he left this village, had he pictured just such a return and reception as he was now enacting? How many times had he all but counted these thousands of smiling faces which now beamed forth at him? How many times had he prayed to return to his home as a hero respected by all? This, then, was the reality. He had his reception, he had the smiling faces—and he had before him the task of imposing his Nazi authority upon the entire village and making them conform to the stern mandates of Hitlerism.

He shook himself free of his more distracting thoughts and faced the crowd before him in a truly official capacity. He was aware that much depended upon the first impression he made. Paramount in his mind now was the problem of securing and maintaining the respect of the people he would have to govern. He stepped back with difficulty to a position several paces off from the vanguard of the crowd and raised both hands to indicate his desire to address them. With excellent discipline the band stopped playing and there was complete silence. Heinrich began to speak in a cold, stentorian tone:

“Citizens! It became known in the capital that the Province of Gronau has not as yet received the spirit of the new Germany. Our Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, has bestowed upon me the honorable title of Governor and invested in me the authority with which to make this town a stronghold of National Socialism. I am determined to fulfill this obligation quickly and by whatever means I may find necessary. Whoever tries to oppose me will be dealt with harshly.” He paused for a moment to note the effect of his words. “I see,” he went on, “that only a few of you know your duties and obligations toward the New Reich. Therefore I proclaim that hereafter, at the sound of our anthem, everyone—man, woman and child—shall raise his right arm. At the same time the men will uncover their heads. Disobedience to this proclamation will lead to immediate imprisonment. You will now observe my action and repeat everything I do and say.” With that, he raised his right arm in the Nazi salute and shouted, “Heil Hitler!”

He motioned to the band which began again to play the “Horst Wessel” song. The people as one raised their right arms and echoed loudly and mechanically “Heil Hitler!” A cold wave of anxiety spread among them as a result of Heinrich’s speech. Followed by his guards, the new Governor strode out of the railroad station into a large automobile which waited for him in the street outside and drove away from the silent and uneasy crowd.

The village burgomaster and the official reception committee were left, completely stunned, on the platform. Their carefully prepared speeches choked their throats. The new Governor had struck them dumb by ignoring all of their careful preparations for his welcome.

To Heinrich, gazing thoughtfully out of the window as the car brought him swiftly to the Town Hall, none of the familiar landmarks had changed. It was he alone, of all the people in Gronau, who was unfamiliar. He searched the stone exteriors of every building he passed as though to evoke from them some obscure memory of his youth—but none was forth coming. The anodyne of forgetfulness was denied him and he thought again with horror of the words he had spoken in such a hostile, brutal manner. For the first time in many moons Heinrich’s conscience was experiencing a pang. It had been his intention to make his return an occasion for general rejoicing. Instead, he remembered with acute embarrassment how the expression of the people had changed to sudden anxiety as he spoke and how their fear of him had been plainly written on their horrified faces.

Deep in his heart, submerged by the required rigidity of his official position, had been the hope that these kind and honest village folk would realize that all of his severity had been imposed upon him by another and that the ruthless task he had to perform was merely part of his pledge to the Chancellor of Germany.

Then suddenly, in his confusion and from a natural desire to defend himself, a wave of revulsion swept over him. He bitterly resented the unfairness of the people’s attitude which did not allow them to understand that he acted as an official in performance of his duty. The thought came to him that if they could not accept his orders in the proper cooperative spirit, he would be compelled to use strenuous measures in order to force recognition of his authority.

The car came to a stop before the old Town Hall and Heinrich made his way up the stairs and into the building. The delegation which had been formed to greet him here escorted him to the ceremonial hall which they had chosen for their new Governor’s office. Heinrich stood at the entrance to the hall and covered the length and breadth of it with one swift glance. A flicker of displeasure showed on his face and he demanded to see the burgomaster immediately.

After a few minutes of disquieting silence the burgomaster appeared, flushed and winded. Fresh in his mind was the insult accorded him and others of the reception committee just a few minutes ago at the station. He rushed toward Heinrich with arms outstretched.

“Welcome home, Heinrich Schmidt, welcome!” A natural desire to make this a happy occasion sounded in his voice.

Heinrich’s mouth closed into a narrow little line. Then he said, “Our greeting is ‘Heil Hitler!,’ Mister Burgomaster, and don’t forget it!”

In utter bewilderment the burgomaster awkwardly raised his right arm in salute and repeated “Heil Hitler!”

Heinrich and his aides clicked their heels in response and, with right arms raised, returned the greeting, “Heil Hitler!”

Then the entire group moved into the room and Heinrich took his place behind a large desk. With a condescending wave of the hand he indicated to the burgomaster a chair close by. Then he spoke again.

“I must tell you,” he said, “that I find these quarters entirely inadequate. I shall need a number of private rooms.”

The burgomaster looked surprised. “Why, Mr. Schmidt . . .” he began.

“ ‘Governor.’ ” Heinrich snapped at him.

"Mr. Governor then,” the burgomaster’s face was scarlet. “This is the only room available. I can give you more desks but the town’s business really demands all the other available space in this building and . . .”

Heinrich interrupted him in an icy tone, “I expect you to provide me with suitable offices by tomorrow morning. Some other building will do but it must be centrally located and I must have a sufficient number of rooms for my staff, the S. A. guards, my personal aides, officers, clerks and so on.”

The burgomaster, terrified by now, spoke again. “But Mr. Governor, how can I? I have no budget for such expense. All I can do is to call a special meeting of the town assembly and have your request for an appropriation put before them . . .”

Heinrich spoke with uncontrolled fury. “This is not a request, it’s an order! As for your assembly, you will shortly receive my decree dissolving that body and in due time I will send you a new list of assemblymen to be picked by me. That is all for now. You may go. But remember, I shall expect new quarters by tomorrow morning. If you find you cannot make these arrangements for me I will be forced to make them myself, in which case you may find yourself in an unpleasant position. Good day.” He stood up abruptly, raised his right arm and said, “Heil Hitler!” The terrified burgomaster gave the required salute and backed quickly out of the room.

“One minute,” Heinrich called after him. “I intend to be working here all night. When you find the proper quarters let me know.”

The burgomaster nodded feebly in acquiescence and disappeared quickly through the doorway.

His first act upon leaving Heinrich was to call the assembly into extraordinary session.

After a recital of the events of the morning, there followed irreconcilable arguments and discussions. The group was about evenly divided into two camps, one of which was in favor of granting Heinrich every request and surrendering unconditionally to his authority. The other was for opposing Heinrich’s unrestrained show of dictatorship and refusing every one of his demands. When it seemed as though the two camps of thought were becoming more firmly rooted in their respective opinions, further discussion was abandoned and some one among them made the only practical suggestion which was acceptable to both sides. It was decided that the burgomaster should go to Heinrich’s father and let Herr Schmidt decide the best course to pursue. After all, they reasoned, a father would surely know best how to deal with his own son.

Deep in thought, Herr Schmidt sat at his desk in the Zeitung offices and looked at the sheet of paper before him, upon which were his many written attempts to begin the day’s editorial. After much deliberation he laid down his pen and abandoned his writing temporarily until he could adjust himself to a proper course. Heinrich’s arrival stirred him deeply. On the one hand, he felt great joy and a father’s pride in the importance of the reception accorded to his son. On the other hand, he had heard of Heinrich’s hostility at the station and his impossible speech. This news had upset him visibly both as a true liberal and as a father. He greatly feared that, under Nazi influence, his boy might have changed so radically that he no longer harbored any filial sentiment. Apart from his fatherly apprehension, there was the realization that many of the townspeople would be watching eagerly for his editorial in the next edition of the Zeitung. They would expect, as they had always been taught to expect, Herr Schmidt to give his own honest views about Heinrich’s speech at the station and his own advice regarding the proper attitude to take toward the new Nazi administration.

His ruminations were disturbed by the excited entrance of the burgomaster who did not stop to greet Herr Schmidt with his customary grace but instead, immediately began to tell the story of his meeting with Heinrich and Heinrich’s subsequent demands.

Herr Schmidt listened quietly throughout the recitation of the events.

When the burgomaster had finished his tale he appealed pathetically to Herr Schmidt. “What am I to do? What am I to do?” he pleaded for an answer.

Herr Schmidt’s mind had been made up. He spoke slowly but firmly. “All my life I have stood for the maintenance of law,” he said. “I shall not waver now. Do nothing. Wait until tomorrow!”

The Burgomaster clasped Herr Schmidt’s hand in a silent expression of thanks and left the office. Fresh determination took hold of Herr Schmidt, now the editor more than the father. He reached for the pen lie had so recently discarded.

That the new Nazi Governor was his own son meant nothing to him now. His sense of justice had been deeply offended and he wrote with a fine fervor, attacking sheet after sheet of fresh paper in his hurry to cry out against the evils of the Nazi system.

CHAPTER XXIV

At nine o’clock the following morning Heinrich Schmidt, Governor of the Province of Gronau, sat down at his desk in preparation for the day’s work. His attention was immediately attracted to a red penciled copy of the Gronau Zeitung. The heaviest pencil marks encircled the day’s editorial. This he read quickly and with a perfectly normal smile of indulgence. Through his mind flashed a mental picture of the circumstances which had no doubt surrounded the writing of the editorial. He could see his father leaning over his desk with an expression of determined defiance, firmly writing out his ideas in long hand, word upon word, hour upon hour. Heinrich remembered the time he had tried to persuade his father to engage a secretary to take down and later transcribe his editorials and he remembered as well his father’s horrified reaction to the suggestion. For thirty years his pen had been his trusted ally, he had responded, and no new fangled system was going to take its place. No stenographer’s hieroglyphics could ever, to his mind, transmit the fire and brimstone with which his pen and ink were imbued.

Heinrich read on a little farther and his smile slowly gave way to a frown. With a sudden return to the realization of his position, he knew that it was incumbent upon him to put down all trace of personal feeling. It was necessary to forget the identity of the author of this vicious attack upon the Nazi party and its new representative to Gronau. With his duty deeply engraved in his mind, he knew that he must weigh carefully every word of the editorial, without fear or favor, and that he must deal with its author according to his due.

In earnest now he spread before him the double sheets of newsprint and carefully read the description of his own welcome at the railway station, his speech which followed and his later demands upon the burgomaster. These demands were termed “outrageous, harsh, unconstitutional and entirely radical” and were followed a little farther down the page with this advice: “The Governor is reminded that the German Constitution was written out of the hearts of the German people and there are limits to the hunger for power of underripe youths.” The editorial ended by invoking the people to “defy and resist every order of the new Chief Executive which is unduly harsh and unlawful.”

Heinrich’s brows were by this time knitted together in a deep scowl. The complications were obviously more serious than he had originally supposed. He rang for one of his aides and commanded the immediate presence of the burgomaster.

When the burgomaster arrived after a short time, Heinrich put his question to him quickly. “Have you arranged for suitable offices for me?”

The burgomaster’s answer came haltingly. “Well . . . not yet ... I didn’t sleep all night and . . .” “So you did not obey my order!”

“No . . . not yet . . .”

“Place him under arrest,” Heinrich thundered to one of his adjutants.

“Please, please,” the burgomaster pleaded, “it isn’t my fault! It was your father’s advice to wait.”

“So I see,” Heinrich said as he fingered the copy of the Zeitung which lay open on his desk. Then he turned and shouted brusquely, “Take him away!” The burgomaster was led roughly out of the room and Heinrich sat down alone to figure out some definite plan of action. Now that his father was openly implicated in these events, Heinrich’s clear duty must be the administration of proper discipline. Otherwise he would be faced with the possibility of his own immediate dismissal by Hitler for failure in the performance of his duties or, in the lack of such an extreme eventuality, he would in any case lose the respect of his own men as well as that of the villagers. Knowing from past experience with what eagerness his father’s editorials were generally anticipated in Gronau he realized by now this attack upon his authority and upon the party mandates must have been widely read. With a desire for quick action, he again pressed the buzzer on his desk and barked an order to the adjutant who appeared.

“I want you to bring the editor of the Gronau Zeitung to me at once.” An added thought occurred, to him and his tone softened a little as he continued, “But don’t do him any harm, he is an old man.” His voice was almost inaudible as he finished, “And he is also my father.”

The adjutant saluted and dashed off to execute his command.

Heinrich nervously began what was actually a short enough period of waiting for his father but what seemed to him, in his anxiety, to be hours. He rose from his seat, paced up and down the room and then sat down again. This operation he repeated at least half a dozen times before he gave himself up honestly to an open expression of worry and fear of the outcome of this long–postponed face to face meeting with his father. There was still something in Heinrich which cried out his dismay at the fantastic, strange and unnatural circumstances which had finally brought about this meeting.

His wait was short. Within twenty minutes there was a knock on his door and, at his command, the door was thrown open. Behind the adjutant who had been charged with this commission and between two strong young Storm Troopers, Herr Schmidt was firmly, if somewhat persuasively, escorted into the room.

Heinrich gave a short order to be left alone with his father and made it clear that under no circumstances was he to be disturbed. The three Nazis left the room and Herr Schmidt remained to stand trial before his son—that son who had the power to commit him to prison, even to send him before a firing squad if he so desired.

Had Heinrich obeyed his first impulse, he would have thrown his arms about his father and told him how over—joyed he was to see him, how much this reunion actually meant to him. In a moment he had been able to observe how heavily the burden of years now weighed on his father, how stooped was his bearing but, inevitably, how bright with temerity were his eyes. But the censor who guarded the balance of Heinrich’s nature stood him in good stead and it was Heinrich the Nazi Governor—not Heinrich the son—who spoke finally.

“Sit down, father,” he said formally. Then, impulsively, he stretched out his hand but he withdrew it quickly under his father’s angry rejection. His eyes dropped as he continued, “I’m glad to see you well, sir.”

Herr Schmidt refused the invitation to be seated and took a firm stance before his son. “Is it characteristic of the new Reich,” he asked, “for sons to arrest their fathers in order to pay them compliments?”

Heinrich settled back, almost relaxed under the fire of his father’s familiar anger and defiance. “You’re not under arrest. I intended to go to your home today.” For a brief moment the gulf of years which separated them was swept aside and his father’s physical presence enabled him once more, at long last, to feel close to another human being. But the realization quickly came to him that he must conduct this meeting in an official manner. His tone was now detached. “A few hours after my arrival you forced me to act as a governor and not as your son.”

Herr Schmidt was seized with the desire to put an end to all this sham formality between them, as Heinrich’s speech had in any case been a kind one and with a parent’s instinct he felt sure that there was a similar desire on Heinrich’s part to abolish barriers between them. However, he remembered bitterly the reason for his appearance and made his voice sound as detached as Heinrich’s.

“I heard that you arrested the burgomaster also,” he said. “Why?”

“He resisted my order.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Herr Schmidt explained. “He only followed my advice. I’m the culprit—arrest me.

Heinrich did not answer.

Herr Schmidt went on, “What is this new regime based upon? Sentimentality? Am I shielded because I’m your father? Well, I don’t wish such protection!” Heinrich stood up and walked around the desk until he stood directly before his father. Placing his hands gently but firmly on the older man’s shoulders he pushed him down into a chair.

“We’ll never get any place this way,” he said. “Sit down, father, and listen to me.” He pulled up a chair and sat down opposite Herr Schmidt. “I won’t try to convince you that Adolf Hitler saved Germany,” he began. “You will be able to judge our party on its accomplishments in due time. Germany is surrounded by enemies who are preparing for her downfall. If it were not for the Nazis you would have Bolshevism here right now.”

Herr Schmidt interrupted angrily, “That’s a preposterous lie! You’ve used that merely as a screen to frighten people—it’s the same thing as a mother scaring her child with threats of a bogeyman.”

Heinrich ignored the interruption and continued, “We’re not asking for indulgence. We do what we consider necessary and we derive the right to do those things from our own good intentions.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Herr Schmidt asked. “You know that Hell is paved with good intentions. Your wish is your law but who is to be the judge of whether your wish is correct?”

Heinrich was very serious now. "Many of your friends are good Catholics, father, and they live up to the catechism. Have you ever known any one among them to doubt the correctness of that dogma?”

Into Herr Schmidt’s mind flashed the picture of Father Christian. His answer was quick. “No,” he said honestly.

“Well,” Heinrich exclaimed seriously, “Adolf Hitler is our catechism and his proposals are our dogma.” With a quick gesture of his hand he silenced his father, who was about to refute his statement. Then he went on. “There’s no use arguing. We have all the power in the state and we are resolved to use it. I came here as nothing more than the instrument by which Hitler’s wishes may be followed. I shall not allow anyone to interfere with my official duties—please understand me when I say ‘anyone.’ It was necessary for me to set the right example immediately and for this reason I placed the burgomaster under arrest and,” he looked openly at his father, “it is for this reason also that I must now officially suspend the publication of your newspaper for an indefinite period, effective as of today. You must be disciplined. I will see to it that you receive the decree sometime today.”

There was an extremely painful silence during which Herr Schmidt turned white. It was he who spoke first.

“After all these years,” he said bitterly, “it is my own son who is going to ruin my paper.”

Heinrich’s hand extended sympathetically and covered that of his father. “I want you to listen to me for just another minute, father, and then judge me.”

In his son’s face at this moment Herr Schmidt could detect a strong resemblance to the boy he once knew so well. The same features showed strongly and spoke of stubbornness, love, strength. As Heinrich leaned toward him in an attitude of unconcealed sympathy and affection, Herr Schmidt found it difficult to reconcile this picture of his son with that other one—that stern representative of the law. “Go on, my son,” he said.

Heinrich spoke softly. “It gives me no pleasure to punish my father,” he said, “but a new time and a new order have arrived and, as you know, I am the official exponent of this new order here in Gronau. What you wrote in your newspaper is actually high treason.” He rose from his chair and began to pace back and forth. “Do you understand? High treason! Punishable by arrest and by death on the guillotine!”

Herr Schmidt’s eyes opened wide but he said nothing as Heinrich continued. “In suspending your paper I am saving you from the danger of a trial. Our government is not in the least indulgent. It has to be severe in these times.” He turned almost pleadingly to his father. “Tell me that you see my point.” “I see,” Herr Schmidt told him, as he arose with dignity. “I suppose I should be grateful to you.” “Please don’t be so bitter, father,” Heinrich begged him. “I’m only doing my duty. Don’t make it any harder for me than it is. All I ask of you is to be careful. Do, please, be discreet! At least, try.”

Herr Schmidt prepared to leave when he suddenly remembered the original reason for his appearance here.

“What are you going to do with the burgomaster?” he asked. “He is innocent. I want you to believe that it was all my fault.”

“For the sake of my conscience I’ll have to keep him in jail for a few days,” Heinrich advised him, “but then I’ll let him go. I’ll see to it that no harm comes to him. However, he will have to fall in line quickly as I cannot tolerate any further resistance from anyone. I must have whole—hearted cooperation from now on and I do wish, father, that you would pass the word along.”

“Well,” Herr Schmidt said, with no attempt at subtlety, "thank you for a very instructive hour, Mr.

Governor. I’d like to say goodbye—or perhaps you’d prefer me to say ‘Heil Hitler!’ ”

Heinrich’s answer was sincere. “I should advise you to do it,” he said.

“But I won’t do it.” Herr Schmidt advanced toward the door.

“Wait, father,” Heinrich called after him. Herr Schmidt turned and waited. “Please try, father. Learn to do it. It will save you a great deal of trouble in the future.”

“The trouble my conscience would give me would be greater,” Herr Schmidt told him.

“Please wait another moment, father,” Heinrich pleaded as Herr Schmidt prepared again to leave.

Once more he stopped in his tracks. “Yes?”

“I haven’t asked you about everyone at home. I'm very anxious to visit you. May I, if I have the opportunity?”

Herr Schmidt’s attitude was sharp. “You said yourself just a few minutes ago that the Governor’s wish is law in Gronau.”

“I’d like to come home as your son, father, not as the Governor of Gronau.”

For the first time since their meeting Herr Schmidt’s tone betrayed his deep affection for his boy. “My son is always welcome in my house, Heinrich.”

He stretched out his hand and Heinrich took it gratefully.

All the following morning Herr Schmidt sat uneasily in his garden cursing the fate which had forced him to rest from his work. His body had become so used to the regularity of his daily labor that he found it impossible to relax. He thought enviously of everyone he knew who at this moment was fortunate enough to be engaged in his work and a feeling of loneliness descended upon him akin to the hunger of a man in the midst of plenty.

He was extremely gratified, therefore, when he saw the figure of Heinrich approaching down the road. Heinrich waved to him as he came nearer. Herr Schmidt, recovering from his surprise and overwhelming pleasure, waved back.

“Nice morning, father,” Heinrich called casually as he swung through the gate. “The spring came early this year.”

“Yes. The sun’s good for my creaking bones.” Heinrich glanced about inquiringly. “Where’s Fritz?”

“He should be home soon for lunch.”

Heinrich now took in the old familiar scene. The house was essentially the same as it had been when he last saw it except for a few changes which, to his familiar eye, were immediately obvious. It seemed older and more weather-beaten and there were a few lattices missing from the porch rail. The grass was badly in need of cutting but there was the old linden tree standing proudly among the rose bushes which, he was happy to note, were budding beautifully. There, too, was the rickety old pump which he had worked so dexterously as a boy and the sight of it here before him called forth in his mind the memory of those cool buckets of water which had been his reward in those days.

With a return to reality he looked in the direction of a barking dog and saw that the animal was strange to him. His eye was attracted to a few chickens who ran across the gravel path down the back of the house and this scene in its reassuring familiarity returned him again to the past. Everything about the place was so well known to Heinrich that it was almost a part of him, yet now it seemed so strange after his long absence. It was difficult for him to remember that he had ever known the rest, the quiet, the serenity which hovered about this simple little frame house in this little old-fashioned village.

What a contrast was brought to his mind when he conjured up pictures of the rush and clatter of the large cities he had left behind. This sweet fresh air which surrounded him was so wholesome, so real that he seemed to be in another world entirely. It was this feeling of other-worldliness which aroused in Heinrich the sore realization that he had been living for all the past years without his heart and without his soul.

Perhaps Herr Schmidt guessed something of the conflict in Heinrich’s mind because he coughed loudly in order to break in on his son’s thought.

Heinrich, startled, turned about. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have been dreaming.”

“I thought so.” Herr Schmidt’s tone was casual now. “Why don’t you go inside and look around,” he suggested.

With a fleeting expression of gratitude Heinrich said, “I’d like to. Would you mind, father?”

Herr Schmidt smiled with understanding and answered, “Go ahead, my son.” Then, with meaning, “You’ll find your room just as it was the day you left.”

Heinrich walked into the house and almost ran up to his room. Such an expression of unrestrained enthusiasm had been absent from his manner for many years. As he threw open the door, an odor of mustiness greeted him. He crossed over and opened a window to allow the fresh air and sunlight to enter. Then he proceeded to a careful inspection of the contents of the room and with each item he found came memories of particular events.

His fingers touched the guitar hanging over his bed with the affection of a long association. He noticed that the E string was still unmended. He walked to his desk and found there in its usual place an old photograph of Ilsa. The picture had been taken in the garden among the rose bushes and Heinrich remembered in detail the day it was snapped. His discovery of the photograph was, in a way, an unexpected shock. Since their last horrible scene together in the prison he had been so successful in putting out of his mind all thoughts of Ilsa and everything associated with her that he now found himself totally unprepared to stem the flood of emotion which swept over him at the sight of her picture. He dropped into a chair and rested his head in his hands. With his eyes closed, he must have sat there for fifteen minutes without once moving.

It was only the sound of unusual activity in the garden below which aroused him. With an effort at regaining his composure he placed the photograph back on the desk, closed the window and made his way out of the room, leaving it just as he had found it. As he came out into the sunlight in the garden he felt more like himself.

He was surprised to see the author of the commotion he had heard from above. A little blond-headed boy was climbing in and out of Herr Schmidt’s lap with amazing vigor. As Heinrich came out of the house the boy’s eyes opened wide to take in the magnificence of a military uniform.

The boy ran excitedly toward Heinrich and prodded him with questions. “Who are you? Are you a soldier? Will you play with me?” he wanted to know.

Heinrich smiled self-consciously with the uneasiness of an adult who has had little experience in dealing with children. He finally said, “What do you want to play?”

Unhesitatingly the youngster replied, “Soldiers.”

“Well,” Heinrich said, “I’ll try. Let’s see now . . . how can we begin?” Suddenly he remembered. “I have it! Do you know how to give a soldier’s greeting?”

“How?”

"Raise your right arm and say ‘Heil Hitler!’ ” was the command.

The boy did so obediently and ran about, from one end of the garden t0 the other, demonstrating this new game to no one in particular. “Heil Hitler Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!” he called out, delightedly. He was about to return to Heinrich for more commands when Ilsa appeared at the gate and heard with horror what the boy was playing.

She called to him sharply, “Karl!”

He ran to her, eager to advise her of his new game. “Heil Hitler! mommy,” he cried gleefully.

Heinrich had been standing quietly and when Ilsa appeared he felt himself flush suddenly. His old feeling toward her, despite his years of effort to submerge it, was as deep-seated and strong as ever. Then, in a minute, the realization came to him that this child was Fritz’s—not his, but Fritz’s. Jealousy, anger, disappointment crowded in on him. He found himself unable to do anything he might have liked to. Instead, in a hoarse voice he called “Ilsa . . . !”

Ilsa furiously declined to acknowledge his greeting. “I will not have you teaching my son such things!” “Your boy?” Heinrich repeated stupidly.

At that moment Fritz walked through the gate behind Ilsa and came up between his wife and his brother with menacing anger on his face. Herr Schmidt had risen too and walked up beside Fritz to lay a restraining hand on his arm.

Disregarding his father’s concern, Fritz shook himself free and spoke fiercely to Heinrich. “The last time you spoke to her,” he said, “you insulted her. I must forbid you to come near here again, Mr. Governor.” Protectively he placed his arms around Ilsa and directed her gently toward the house. Karl, bewildered, followed them.

Impulsively Heinrich began to apologize. He was extremely confused and his voice was pleading. “Please,” he begged, “I must apologize.” His words were met with surprise and question. Then he went on to explain as best he could. “But my apology must be unofficial. Officially all Jews are traitors.”

Fritz lunged fiercely toward his brother with almost murderous intent but Herr Schmidt was swifter and stepped in between his two sons. With all the dignity he could muster from his heartbreaking position he turned upon Heinrich.

"You have unjustly insulted your sister-in-law and her family and if you have any decency left in you you should be thoroughly ashamed of yourself,” he said.

The day had been too full of memories and confusion for Heinrich to hold on to himself. His reaction now was purely defensive and thoroughly trained by his years with Hitler. “The Governor’s sister-in-law is a Jewess! Wouldn’t you say that’s a bit difficult?”

Fritz answered him coldly. “You needn’t acknowledge the relationship and you can be sure that we won’t, either. We’re not very proud of you, my big, heroic brother.”

Heinrich shouted back at him: “You married her only to embarrass me and you know it. But you’ll regret it . . . you and your whole Jewish brood!”

“Get out of here, Heinrich,” Herr Schmidt ordered in a quiet voice that belied his rage. Heinrich started to speak but his father repeated, “Get out of here. I never want to see you again.”

Heinrich glared at all of them with hurt and resentment. Then he cried, “All right! I’m glad to know how you feel. It will make my task all the easier!” He turned toward Ilsa and said with meaning, “You can pray that you never have reason to visit me!” As he turned, his heels clicked from force of habit. Suddenly the silence was broken by little Karl who ran after him shouting “Heil Hitler! Mr. Soldier, Heil Hitler!”

In the garden Ilsa and Fritz went quietly toward the house, arms about each other’s waists. Herr Schmidt took the little hand of his grandson in his own and slowly followed them. In his mind was the picture of another little golden-haired boy, a long time ago, who had offered his hand with just as much trust, but that was when peace and happiness reigned in the house of Schmidt and when love enveloped them all.

CHAPTER XXV

Heinrich, released from any show of affiliation with his family, plunged into his work wholeheartedly. Within the week following the scene in the garden, he had successfully launched Gronau’s official reign of terror. As usual the first Nazi victims were the Jews, a group very definitely in the minority and, therefore, helpless to defend themselves.

Government bulletins glared from the billboards announcing new mandates from Hitler and listing party meetings which Aryans were commanded to attend. Reminders of tax deadlines implied severe penalty for any who neglected to pay and one giant billboard in the public square was devoted entirely to the daily lists from Berlin which kept the people informed of the number of victims who fell on the guillotine as ‘enemies of the State and Party.’

The first organized pogrom upon the Jews was scheduled for Saturday late in May. Without warning, when the day arrived the Nazis struck. At a given signal detachments of Storm Troopers armed with paint, glue and posters marched singing through the streets. Each battalion moved in the direction of a particular square to which it had been assigned and each commander of these groups carried in his pocket a list of all Jews, half—Jews and quarter—Jews living in that particular square.

All through the day and night the terror continued. In the shopping sections Jewish merchants were dragged out of their stores and beaten unmercifully. On some occasions the Storm Troopers handed clubs to the Jews themselves and stood by laughing as they made the Jews beat each other. One man was forced to lick the blood from the unfortunate Jew he had been belaboring.

In the motion picture houses the Storm Troopers entered in disordered fashion, stopped the films, and announced “Every Jew must leave here at once.”

Out in the streets, the Jews rushed frantically about searching for shelter. Many Aryans under threat of severe punishment, stood helplessly by and dared not lift a hand in aid.

All around the town the terror was felt. With diabolic humor, the Storm Troopers threw Jews into public lavatories and forced them to clean the toilet bowls with their bare hands. With particular delight they chose Jews of the upper middle class for the special task of scrubbing the streets and the public urinals and doused their hands and scrub brushes with strong lye solutions. In the synagogue, the more religious Jews were forced to do “physical jerks” until they fell from exhaustion.

A furniture store in the village bore the legend crudely painted on its window: “Here are good bedbugs.”

A small tobacco shop was broken into and its entire stock of cigars, cigarettes and tobacco was greedily pocketed by the Storm Troopers.

The banker, Goodman, was forced at the point of a gun to sign an unusual paper. It read, “I am a pig—Jew and I have accumulated my fortune through swindle and fraud. I therefore bequeath my entire fortune to the German Reich.”

The little hotel in the town was raided and all Jews found on its premises, whether employees or guests, were put to work moving heavy furniture and scrubbing the floors.

The terror mounted continuously after this one day. The next week a new sign was to be found over the entrance to a large dairy farm. “Cows purchased from Jews not allowed to be served by the communal bull.”

The suicide rate soared. Shots were to be heard everywhere at every hour of the day and night. Shultzheim, the druggist, started the epidemic. His store had been looted, his savings confiscated and his home stripped of most of its furniture. One night he turned on the gas for his wife, his son, daughter-in-law, grandchild and himself. Outside of his home the Nazis wrote their comment: “Others, please follow suit.”

Moritz Rosenberg, the clothing merchant, appealed to the people of Gronau. In his window he displayed a sign:

Am I a traitor to Germany?

During the war I received the Iron Cross of the first and second class as well as the Bavarian Order for personal courage.

I served three years in the trenches and was wounded four times.

Moritz Rosenberg.

Because he refused to remove the sign he and his eighteen-year-old son were shot down before a horrified group of villagers.

Pastor Miller defied an order not to buy from Braner, the tobacconist, on the grounds that Braner’s grandfather was a Jew. When the Pastor came out of the shop with his purchases in hand an S. A. camera snapped his picture. The following day a printed handbill was distributed around bearing this picture, together with an exaggerated story ending with the threat: “The Governor as well as the entire S. A. organization will not forget the Pastor’s treachery and he is advised in the future to refrain from purchasing any articles whatsoever from his Jewish and part-Jewish friends.”

Telephone wires were tapped by Nazis on the slightest whim. Doctor Mendelsohn spoke of this with alarm to Herr Schmidt.

“I must answer when the phone rings,” he said. “I have sick patients. I must dare to do what I know to be right.”

The next time his telephone rang the Doctor was extremely surprised to find that the voice on the end of the wire was far from being a Nazi’s.

“A man who owes his life to you,” someone said softly from the other end, ‘‘has placed a package in your garden near the gate. Go and get it.” The package contained a bottle of Rhine wine and a cake, as well as a note: “You will need strength and courage.”

Jewish families scattered over Gronau received these anonymous expressions of sympathy day after day, despite the severe punishment in store for any Aryan unfortunate enough to be caught in the act of committing the crime of human kindness.

Frau Rosenberg, half insane over the death of her husband and son, answered her doorbell one evening to find an envelope left there for her. In it was a five-mark bill and a note: “I wish I could send you more. May God help you. (signed) A German.”

August Sahm, one of the first men in Gronau to join the Nazi party and a regular contributor to its coffers, was surprised one day at his offices in the Gronau Chemical Works which he owned. A group of Storm Troopers broke in upon him to inform Sahm that his grandmother was a Jewess and that he could hand over his business to the party or else take the consequences.

Sahm was fortunate enough to obtain permission to appear before Heinrich personally and he admitted, “Some time ago your father reproached me for giving money to your party. Your father was right and I was wrong. He told me then that I was digging my own grave.”

Heinrich dismissed him unfeelingly and advised him to keep his mouth shut. The next morning Sahm was found with a rope around his neck, hanging dead in the factory which was no longer his own.

An attack upon the Catholics of Gronau sprang up simultaneously with these attacks on the Jews. Violent denunciations of priests and nuns alike appeared in the local Nazi paper. Indignantly, Father Christian sought an audience with Heinrich Schmidt in order to complain.

“This is outrageous,” he protested, laying a newspaper article before Heinrich.

“I don’t think so,” Heinrich snapped. “You may take it as a warning.”

“But this is a violation of freedom of faith—an assault upon holy matters.”

“The first law of our government is the welfare of the nation,” Heinrich answered.

“A nation must perish without religion.”

Heinrich was impatient with the Priest. “The principles of the party are inflexible,” he said. He picked up a list of names and handed it to Father Christian. ‘‘Here are the names of some priests and Protestant preachers who are now residing in concentration camps around Hanover. There are thousands more in Berlin and Munich. Would you like to see those also?”

The priest shook his head incredulously.

“This is only the beginning,” Heinrich told him, “and I hope it will serve as a lesson to you not to mix in politics.”

“I’m not concerned with politics,” the priest said quietly, “but I’m resolved to stand for my faith.”

“Your stubbornness may prove disastrous to you,” Heinrich warned him.

Father Christian stood up to his full height as he answered, “The history of the Roman Church is full of memories of its martyrs. I am only a humble servant of the Church but, no matter what Fate has in store for me, it will find me strong in my faith to the end. The Catholic Church for nineteen centuries has withstood all the changes and assaults that time, circumstances and man have brought to bear on it but it is still unchanged. And it will be unchanged long after the hatred of the Nazis has disappeared from the face of the earth.”

Chaos reigned in the schools as well. When Professor Meiser entered his classroom one morning he found his blackboard tattooed with the scrawl of the various children: “My teacher is a dirty Jew,” was the general theme expressed. As he attempted to use discipline to bring the children to order, Professor Munther came to the door and ordered him to leave the building at once. Meiser was bewildered.

“Governor Schmidt has enlightened me,” Professor Munther told him. “No German can have a Jew for a friend.”

“But I’m just as good a German as you are. I gave two sons to Germany.”

Munther shrugged. “That doesn’t count any more. You had a Jewish grandfather,” he said. "Now please follow my instructions and leave the building immediately. As the new headmaster of this school I do not wish to have any trouble with you.”

It was not long before Peter Mendelsohn was dismissed, even more roughly, from the school in which he had been teaching.

“If only we could get justice in the courts,” Doctor Mendelsohn cried when he was told by Peter what had happened. “But there are no more courts except the Nazi ones.”

Frau Mendelsohn was sobbing bitterly. "Your turn will be next, papa,” she cried.

“They cannot stop me from performing my duties at the hospital, no matter how they try,” the Doctor assured her. “I’d rather be caught doing my work instead of neglecting it.”

At supper a few nights later Peter told his family that Herr Schmidt had offered him a position on the Zeitung.

“It’s kind of him,” the Doctor commented, “but it is a dangerous risk and I should hate to think we were adding to his troubles. However, I’d advise you to accept the offer, as Heinrich will no doubt protect his father.”

When the first course had been put on the table Fanny, the maid, to everyone’s surprise removed her apron and refused to finish serving the meal.

“I’d like you to know,” she announced arrogantly, “that I am no longer your servant. I have been ordered to watch over this entire square of houses and report to Nazi headquarters if anything is said against the party. I have also been informed that it is humiliating for a German to work for Jews. I’ll have to watch all of you closely, you understand that.”

When the front door closed behind her, the Mendelsohn family “understood” only too well.

Atrocity after atrocity occurred so fast that there was hardly time for the full meaning of the terror to sink into the minds of the people.

Walter Kies, the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant and a student of law at the University of Munich, announced his engagement to Marianne Juleich, the daughter of an Aryan physician. As the young couple left Marianne’s home one night they were accosted by a group of Storm Troopers, at the head of which was Friedrich Steinbogel, a young man who had been rejected by the girl a few months before in Kies’s favor.

“Still in love with that dirty little rat of a Jew, eh, Marianne?” Steinbogel called to them.

Walter Kies turned angrily upon the Storm Troopers but the girl held him back. “You’ll be good enough to leave us alone, Herr Steinbogel. There’s no law forbidding me to marry whomever I please.” There was a burst of profanity from the S. A.’s. “We’re the law,” Steinbogel informed them, “and it is our decree that you shall not walk with this Jew.” Kies threatened to call the police.

“We’re the police, too, my little Jew,” he was told. Then, with a sudden fury, the Storm Troopers surrounded him and beat him until he lay unconscious on the sidewalk. When this had been accomplished the group split into two, half dragging Kies’s body along with them into an automobile and the other half dragging the protesting girl into a nearby saloon.

Half an hour later a truck drew up before the saloon and Marianne Juleich, her blond hair tumbling in wild disorder and her clothes torn into shreds, was forced to climb to a makeshift seat atop the truck. Two large placards hung from her shoulders. On these were the inscriptions: “I, Marianne Juleich, am a traitor to Germany,” and “My lover is a Jew.” The Storm Trooper at the wheel threw on the ignition switch and the truck began to move slowly through the streets of Gronau, heralded noisily by two trumpeters who played unceasingly as Steinbogel stood above the girl and clipped off thick tufts of hair at regular intervals.

As a result of this episode Marianne died in an insane asylum and Walter Kies, for the short duration of his life, remained a cripple because of the Nazi’s refusal to allow him medical aid to set a broken leg he sustained in the attack.

The Jews had to give up walking through the public parks because of the many signs which prohibited dogs and Jews.

On an afternoon early in June, Rabbi Goldman received some unexpected visitors in the quiet of his study. Having forced their way through the synagogue a group of Storm Troopers came face to face with the old rabbi and confiscated the money from the weekly collection which they found in a strongbox on his desk. This was followed by a general attack upon various objects in the room. The rabbi managed to maintain his calm manner until they discovered the Hebrew Torah and proceeded to tear it to bits. Then he dropped to his knees in anguish and began to pray quietly.

“Oh God,” he implored, “look down in Thy infinite wisdom and mercy to stay the hands of these vandals.”

“Get up, you old Jewish hypocrite,” one of the Storm Troopers interrupted. “Get up and do an honest day’s work for a change.” The group laughingly agreed to the wisdom of this idea.

After a hurried conference among themselves, one of their men went out and returned in a few minutes with a package of matzoth, the unleavened bread which is a part of the Jewish Passover ceremonies. The rabbi, under threat of death, was made to carry the matzoth to the small yard behind the temple and was ordered to spread it upon the ground where, to his horror, he watched each of the Storm Troopers, in turn, urinate upon it. This seemed to amuse them highly and they decided to force him to follow their example and thus desecrate the bread. He flatly refused.

“You won’t?” sneered the leader. “Then down on the ground with you and eat it. Eat your holy bread, Jewl” He gave the rabbi a violent push, which sent him sprawling to the ground. The sight and smell of the matzoth penetrated his nostrils and made him extremely nauseous. In another minute he was vomiting. There was a show of mock sympathy to greet this new turn of affairs.

“You poor man,” commented one of the Storm Troopers, “you’re ill. Well, fortunately for you I have just the remedy for what ails you.”

With this one of the men grabbed the rabbi by the shoulders and forced back his head, while another poured a pint bottle of castor oil down his throat. A third man held his nostrils together until he swallowed the entire dose.

Frau Mendelsohn’s prophesy to her husband had been correct. Not long after their conversation, Doctor Mendelsohn entered the hospital and immediately detected in the air a foreboding of evil. He was preparing for the operating room when the Mother Superior informed him that she had been ordered to prevent his operating, as he was a Jew and the patient was an Aryan.

“An order came this morning nominating Schenzinger, the interne, as political head of the hospital,” she exclaimed. “He has ordered me to send you home. He wants to perform this operation himself.”

“But that’s preposterous,” the Doctor exploded. “With his lack of experience he’d kill the patient.”

The nun was sympathetic but cautious. “For your own sake, Doctor, I think you should go home,” she said.

Doctor Mendelsohn was not easily frightened, however, and decided to perform his duty regardless of the consequences to himself. With the understanding help of his nurses he proceeded with the operation behind locked doors and continued working as the sound of a commotion arose in the hall outside. Although Schenzinger by now banged unceasingly on the other side of the door and commanded them to open it, no one made a move to obey this order, but instead the operation was performed inside with calm efficiency. When the door was finally flung open, the Doctor was seized and dragged down two flights of stairs to be thrown out bodily from the building. The Mother Superior and a few other nuns rushed to his side in sympathy as he picked himself up from the sidewalk outside.

Pastor Miller was repaid in full by the Nazis for his efforts to stem the tide of hatred which was sweeping the village. As he stood in the pulpit during a morning service he was, as usual, imploring his congregation to fill their hearts with love and respect for their fellowmen when a Brown Shirt commander and six troopers entered the church and took immediate possession. Two stood guard at the door, another two ran to the windows. Those who remained followed their commander to the rear and faced the altar. They all carried heavy loads of books.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” Pastor Miller inquired.

The Commander pushed him aside roughly and began to speak from the pulpit. “Germans,” he shouted, “as a representative of the government I hereby dissolve this ridiculous meeting.” His words startled the entire assemblage and there was an embarrassing silence. He continued, “It is our duty to follow the ideas of our God—given Fuehrer. Our children shall find their religion in the ranks of the Hitler Youth, not in this place of mockery. We resent our children being raised in the spirit of the Jewish Bible. From now on our Fuehrer’s book shall be the Bible.”

He stopped talking abruptly and he and his men walked down the aisles among the people and handed out books to everyone, at seven and one-half marks per copy. No one dared refuse to purchase a copy. Next, the leader of the Brown Shirts unwrapped a large framed photograph of Hitler and walked with it to the altar. To the horror of Pastor Miller and his whole congregation the picture of Christ was removed and in its place was hung the image of Hitler.

This was too much for Pastor Miller and he jumped toward the Storm Troopers in protest as, at a signal, four of the Brown Shirts overpowered him and proceeded to beat him mercilessly before the terrified assemblage.

Pastor Miller was tried in a Nazi court for treason. In painful astonishment he was made to listen to a lying recital of the incidents leading up to his arrest. In wonder he heard himself accused of sexual aberrations—of open and illicit relationship with women in his congregation. It was brought out that he was an incurable rapist. The Nazi judge and the picked jury of party men listened delightedly to the proceedings. When these had been terminated the Pastor was asked to stand and receive sentence. As the judge pronounced the findings of the court his manner betrayed his deep sense of shame and he found it impossible to look at the Pastor when he spoke.

“After hearing the testimony of these warriors of the New Germany,” he said, “I must now pass sentence upon you. Before I do this, however, I hereby give you a last chance to admit your guilt and testify to your false beliefs. If you do so, I can promise you the court’s leniency.”

Pastor Miller removed his hand from the rail he had been using for support and stood straight and tall as he delivered his answer.

‘‘Christ was tempted and resisted,” he began. “Thousands have suffered because of their faith throughout the centuries. But never have real believers failed their Church and never will I fail it. Those men who testified against me,” he looked in their direction and his voice became gentle, “those men are blinded by an evil spirit. I forgive them.” He turned back to the Judge. “You who are now going to sentence me for no wrong I’ve committed but only because I have served my God with all my heart—I forgive you, too. For you are also blinded by an evil spirit. Some day God’s mercy will enlighten you and you will distinguish between right and wrong, between truth and untruth. By your own act you brought disgrace upon the whole German nation and never will you be able to rid the country of this curse because it is the quadruple curse of malice, hatred, disbelief and sacrilege. The man whose picture hangs in a place of honor on the wall behind you—that man, who professes a divine mission—is the cause of all our evil . . .”

The Pastor’s speech was stopped at this point and the judge, hesitating between his admiration of such courage and the demands of his duty, slowly proceeded to pass sentence.

“After hearing the testimony of the witnesses,” he stated, “and true to the spirit and laws of this state, this court finds you, Gustav Miller, guilty of a capital offense against Germany in willfully casting down the picture of our beloved Fuehrer and trampling upon it in public. For that offense I hereby sentence you to eight years in the penitentiary at hard labor. Furthermore, it has been proved beyond doubt, by trustworthy witnesses, that you, the defendant, have had countless illicit affairs with various women in your congregation. Our new government will not and cannot tolerate the immorality of its religious exponents. For this second offense, I hereby sentence you to six additional years in the penitentiary. However, in view of the fact that our Fuehrer wishes us to use clemency to gain the love even of such inveterate, depraved criminals as you, I contract both sentences to no more than ten years. That is all.” Then he added quickly, “There is no appeal from this sentence.”

CHAPTER XXVI

Doctor Mendelsohn propped up comfortably in his bed, was discussing with his wife the maltreatment he had endured at the hospital that same morning.

“We should be thankful,” he told her, “that they released me from the hospital. I am an old man and I need this rest.”

Frau Mendelsohn shook her head. “It isn’t this morning I’m afraid of—it’s the force behind all these dreadful events,” she said. “What sort of life can we expect for our children and our children’s children in a country where such force prevails?”

“These incidents need not be predictions of future developments. Hatred and lawlessness cannot last. The power of right will triumph in the end,” the Doctor said reassuringly.

They were interrupted by a sound at the front door. Quick footsteps were heard and Herr Schmidt appeared at the far end of the room. He was excited and spoke nervously.

“I’ve decided to start my presses again,” he announced, before the customary salutations had been exchanged.

“Don’t do it,” the doctor implored. “What’s the use? You’d be in jail before the paper could reach your readers.”

“I have an obligation toward my country,” Herr Schmidt said. “I will not look on quietly and let them put us in the bonds of a slavery unique in the world’s history—never!”

“But no one can fight these forces single-handed,” the doctor argued. “You serve your country best if you have the patience to wait for the right moment. It will come.”

“When will it come?” Herr Schmidt interrupted. “Don’t you see what will happen? Each incident will become an example for others to dare to do more. If these bandits succeed they will encourage thousands of others like them. Everywhere in this world there are men of their type waiting for the psychological moment when they can step forth and inflict similar miseries. Before long they will combine forces and conquer the world. You will see. Today foreign governments are reluctant to deal with Hitler—they hate and distrust him—but they also fear him. The more power he accumulates, the more quickly they will come whining to him for his friendship and in a short time these governments themselves will be replaced by fascist dictatorships.”

He stopped for a deep breath and then continued, “They hate Jews and Catholics and all those who like peace and they hate them because they cannot secure a hold on them. We all believe that God is greater than Hitler and this is the one idea they will not tolerate.”

Doctor Mendelsohn acquiesced. “I’m afraid you’re right, my dear friend. The world today has many ailments. But what can we do? If I knew I could stem the rise of this terror I would gladly give my life. But suicide is the weakest of all weapons.” He looked earnestly at Herr Schmidt and pleaded with him now. “It will be suicide for you,” he said, “if you get your paper out against orders. Please don’t do it.”

Herr Schmidt’s voice became more excited. “What you’re preaching is virtual submission to this evil. What you should do is to stand by your creed and exert all your power to drive out the Nazis.”

“No,” the doctor replied, “this is not yet the time.” The doctor’s advice, however well meant, was totally disregarded by Herr Schmidt. The next morning the Gronau Zeitung appeared again in the home of every subscriber.

CHAPTER XXVII

Outside the school building a group of the younger students had gathered. Their school books lay in a forgotten heap behind them as they clustered about one of their number who had a copy of the Zeitung.

He read aloud, his immature voice shaking with indignation, “ ‘Germany needs patriots like Pastor Miller and Doctor Mendelsohn. Never once have they failed the Fatherland. Why should the Fatherland fail them now?’ ”

One of his companions shouted, “Who is this traitor—this Jew-lover?”

“It’s old man Schmidt,’’ another answered from the other side of the circle. “His lying paper is always making trouble for someone.”

“He’s taken that Jewish teacher into his office!” cried another.

The one who held the paper tossed it to the ground and stamped on it. Then he looked around at his companions, his eyes angry. “What are we waiting for?” he shouted.

His words spurred them into action. They set off at a run, their feet pounding through the school yard, down the street to the Zeitung office.

They streamed unceremoniously through the front door and pushed their way through the outer offices.

“This is what we want,” one of them cried, pointing to the door that bore the lettered line, ‘PRIVATE—Office of the Editor.’ He put his hand upon the knob and then turned blankly to his companions. He said, “It’s locked.”

“Break it in!” they chorused and drew back for the charge.

Together, they hurled their weight against the door. It groaned and shook, but resisted them. They drew back again and once more threw themselves against it. Again it held, but it was weakening perceptibly. The third attack succeeded. The hinges screamed as they were wrenched apart and the boys, wild-eyed and shouting with triumph, trooped in over the defeated door.

“There’s the old Jew-lover!” cried their leader, as they confronted the editor. Herr Schmidt, sitting calmly at his desk with Peter Mendelsohn beside him, regarded them with eyes that held contempt and pity, but nothing of surprise or fear.

“And he’s got his little pet Jew with him,” another of the boys yelled, with delight.

The group advanced on the pair and their leader growled, “We’ll teach you to print lies on those presses of yours!”

He reached a grimy hand to Herr Schmidt’s shoulder and jerked him roughly to his feet.

Peter was out of his chair in an instant and threw himself at the leader of the group. “Take your hands off him, you swine!”

The leader flung the old man aside and whirled on Peter. “Attack a Nazi, will you?” he screamed and lashed out at Peter’s face. The rest of the group, converging, leaped to the attack from all sides.

“Peter! Don’t fight with them, Peter! Don’t!” Herr Schmidt cried, lunging forward to Peter’s assistance.

His effort was halted by a rain of blows from one of the boys who turned his attention to the old editor. Herr Schmidt staggered backward under the fury of the attack until the wall behind him blocked his progress. A sharp blow to the chin sent his head jerking back against the wall with stunning force and he slumped slowly to the floor. His young conqueror leaped back to the melee about Peter.

Peter had backed against the desk and, seizing a chair, was lifting it for a counter-attack. The first line of his assailants had cropped back in terror before the menace of the weapon, but the boy who had downed Herr Schmidt leaped behind the desk. He snatched up a small lead bar used as a paper-weight and swung it in a short, clubbing arc.

Peter dropped the chair as the blow struck and plunged forward on his face. Two of the group about him kicked savagely as he went down. Then, with a jubilant cry, they surged about him. As a reward for the gallant fighter who had struck the decisive blow, he was granted the honor of dragging Peter out of the office by the hair of his head.

Terror and consternation had laid heavy hands on the Mendelsohn household.

On the table in the hall downstairs lay a copy of a Berlin newspaper, opened to the cartoon showing a blond Aryan turning his back on a dark-haired Jewess whose pleading hands were outstretched in supplication. The caption under it read: “Hitler decrees that all Aryans married to Jews must separate or be sent to prison camps.”

In the living room, Ilsa repeated her plea to Fritz, weary from the constant repetition of it, “Fritz, you must go. You must. They’ll only send both of us to a concentration camp. Why should your life be ruined?”

Fritz, sitting in a chair with his head in his hands, answered without looking up, “Darling, what is my life to me if I lose you?” His voice was tired, colorless.

“But Fritz, dear,” Ilsa protested, “even if you’re not a Nazi, they won’t dare touch you because of Heinrich. But if you’re married to me, nothing will help you.”

Fritz lifted his head and turned bloodshot eyes on his wife. He was beside her in a stride, drawing her close to him. “No matter what they do, Ilsa darling,” he whispered fiercely, “I’ll never leave you and Karl. Neverl”

“But you must!” her voice was desperate. “Would you rather sit here and wait for the Nazis to take us?”

Fritz asked, trying to put some hope into his voice, “Have you forgotten that we might escape?”

“But how? We have no passports; you can’t get one, because of me. We’d be shot down before we had gone a mile.”

“We must try it,” Fritz declared. “We can’t just sit here and do nothing. It may be a slim chance, but it’s a chance. We’ll have to act fast, but we may succeed. At least we’ll be doing something to save ourselves. At least—”

A disturbance at the outer door interrupted him. They stared at one another, their hearts pounding. They relaxed a little when they heard a faint cry for help then, their faces anxious as they realized it was Herr Schmidt’s voice, they ran together for the door.

They flung open the door and stared, aghast, as Herr Schmidt staggered in. He was wild-eyed, disheveled, his clothing torn. Down one seamed cheek ran a path of dried blood that had caked on his face and dripped downward to the rags that covered him. Fritz caught his father in his arms as Herr Schmidt stumbled forward.

“Father, you’re hurt!” he cried.

Ilsa caught one hand to her mouth to stifle a scream, then cried, “What happened? What happened?”

Frau Mendelsohn, drawn by the commotion, came hurrying into the room. At sight of Herr Schmidt and his condition she sank weakly into, a chair, her hands balled into fists and pressed tightly against her mouth to choke out the cry of terror that rose to her lips. After a moment, she regained control of herself, though her limbs still trembled, and helped Fritz and Ilsa as they assisted Herr Schmidt to the couch.

They eased him onto it gently, then crowded about him. Fritz was the first to speak.

“What happened, father?” he asked with forced calm. “Tell us who hurt you and why.”

Herr Schmidt choked and murmured something inaudibly. Frau Mendelsohn was out of the room and back in an instant, carrying a glass of brandy. She held it to Herr Schmidt’s lips and he gulped the liquid eagerly. He looked up at her gratefully. Then his eyes clouded and he turned away.

“Never mind me,” he said tensely. “It’s Peter. Go quickly and save him. The Nazis—a bunch of boys —took him from my office. They dragged him away. They—”

A stone crashing through the window punctuated his words. Startled, they turned in time to see it land neatly in the center of the room as the glass tinkled to the floor. Ilsa reached it first and opened the note attached to it. She read it quickly and then stood staring blankly at it.

“What does it say, Ilsa?” Doctor Mendelsohn, drawn from his work upstairs by the sound of the breaking glass, had hurried into the room and now stood by the door. Ilsa lifted dull eyes to stare at her father. He repeated, the softness of his voice belying the urgency of his words, “What does it say, Ilsa? Read it.”

Ilsa’s eyes, blinking to fight back the tears that welled up in them, returned to the paper. “If you want your son,” she read in a barren, monotonous voice, “you will find him at the morgue.”

There was a stony silence, broken when the doctor, with a show of alacrity that had been missing from his step for many years, hurried to the front door. Herr Schmidt, calling on the last reserves of his failing strength, stumbled off the couch to his friend’s side in a desperate effort to stop him.

It was useless. Grimly staring straight before him, the doctor marched stiff-legged into the street and turned in the direction of the Nazi headquarters. Herr Schmidt, unable to halt his friend, fell into step resignedly and tried to keep pace with him.

They walked in complete silence for a few paces. Then Herr Schmidt said, in the tone of a man who has made a difficult decision, “Much as I detest doing so, I’m going to see Heinrich. After all, he is my son; it is my duty as a father to make him realize what horrible crimes he is committing.”

They walked together without another word. When they arrived at the building that was the Nazi headquarters they entered together, but once inside they parted, the doctor proceeding along the corridor in quest of the morgue and Herr Schmidt making his way in the direction of Heinrich’s office.

When he reached the outer corridor, a guard stopped him, but Herr Schmidt was not to be denied.

“I’m his father,” he shouted. “I demand to see him”

The guard hesitated briefly, then disappeared into the private office. He reappeared quickly and motioned to Herr Schmidt to follow him.

Heinrich was seated behind a large desk at the end of the room. When his father entered, he rose and motioned the guard to withdraw.

Heinrich said, “I’m sorry, father, but I can’t help you. The news just reached me that they’ve wrecked your entire plant. I warned you what would happen if you criticized the government.”

“My plant!” Herr Schmidt roared. “What do I care for my plant? Do you know what they’ve done to Peter Mendelsohn?”

Heinrich shouted back at his father, “No more than he deserved! I’m not interested in what happened to him. I’m not here to help the Jews; I’m here to drive them out. They’re traitors to Germany.”

Herr Schmidt shook his head sadly. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, “Think of what you’re saying, Heinrich. You grew up with the Mendelsohns. You know their courage, their loyalty, their devotion . . .

Heinrich pounded his fist on the desk before him. “You can’t move me, father,” he said in a hard voice. “I know the Jewish tricks. I know they sent you here to plead with me. Well, it won’t work. If they haven’t betrayed Germany yet, they will in time. We’ve got to get rid of them and the sooner the better.”

“No one sent me. I’m here to fight for justice. I

“You’re fighting for the Jews, you mean,” Heinrich interrupted. “I tell you, father, you must stop it. Your ideas are all wrong. You might as well be a Jew yourself.”

All the futility of his appeal was brought home to Herr Schmidt with those words. His shoulders sagged wearily as he faced his son. When he spoke again, it was through stiff lips that seemed to shrink back before the bitterness of what was in his heart.

“You’re my flesh and blood, Heinrich, but—God forgive me—it is you who should be lying where Peter Mendelsohn is now. You should be the one to suffer what he suffered in my defense.”

He turned on his heel and made for the door.

Heinrich, taking a step after his father, halted him with, “Where are you going?”

“To the morgue,” Herr Schmidt said flatly. “Where else would I be going? Doctor Mendelsohn is the best friend I have; my place is with him.”

“I warn you, father, not to mix into this.”

The words trailed off into space. Herr Schmidt failed to hear them, for by that time he was out in the hallway again, on his way to the morgue.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A group of Nazis were clustered about the corridor before the entrance to the morgue as Doctor Mendelsohn approached it.

Half blinded with fury and sorrow, he cried out to them, “My boy! Where is my boy?”

“He wants his boy,” one of them repeated. “Here, Wilhelm—did you take his boy?”

Wilhelm laughed and mockingly looked through his pockets. “It seems to me I did, but I can’t remember where I put him.”

The doctor pushed through the outer ring of them and said savagely, fighting the hysteria of grief that threatened to overcome him, “I tell you my son is here in the morgue. Let me see him! You killed him—isn’t that enough?”

“Oh,” said Wilhelm, feigning surprise. “So that’s where he is. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

Doctor Mendelsohn tried to push his way through them, toward the door, but the Storm Troopers closed in about him, blocking his path.

“There’s no hurry, Jew,” said one. “The little fellow will wait until you get there. We’re keeping him on ice for you.”

The sally brought a laugh from the others. Doctor Mendelsohn seized the opportunity to push through the group to reach the door. He pushed it open and stepped quickly into the large room, lined with tables improvised as slabs. On each of them, covered by a sheet, was the ghostly outline of a body.

The doctor, unable to control himself further, shouted, “Peter! Peter, my son! Where are you?” He walked down the aisle with halting steps, hoping against hope that Peter might not be there, that it was all part of some horrible dream from which he might awaken before he reached his son.

“Speak up, Peter,” laughed one of the guards. “Don’t you hear your father calling you?”

The doctor plunged ahead, through the aisles, from table to table, pausing long enough at each one to lift the sheet and peer at the head of the silent occupant. One of the younger Nazi guards came running after him and dropped a heavy hand on his arm.

“Hey, you!” he said gruffly. “Don’t touch those sheets. It isn’t allowed.” Something in the old man’s eyes made him pause. Then he turned to his companions and asked, “Who knows which is this old man’s son?”

“Are you trying to insult me?” one of them called. “Do I look as though I’d know this old Jew’s son?” Another laughed and pointed in a direction the doctor had not yet tried. “Over there, Moses. Try that table.”

Doctor Mendelsohn rushed to the table indicated and flung back the sheet, to recoil in horror at what he had uncovered. It was Peter, but his face had been beaten until it was scarcely recognizable and on his chest, slashed deeply down to the bone, had been carved a crimson swastika.

The sight of the mutilated corpse broke the iron grip the doctor had maintained upon himself. He fell across the defiled remnant of the only son the war had left him and sobbed in anguish, “Peter! Peter, my baby!”

The torment in his voice reached the group of Nazis clustered behind him. They shifted uneasily from one foot to another as an uncomfortable silence fell upon them.

It was broken when one of them stepped forward and shook the doctor roughly. “Enough of that,” he said, his voice harsh. “Time’s up. Now get out of here.”

The doctor struggled free of the grip and stepped back, guarding the table from the Nazi and glaring at him. The doctor snarled, "Take your hands off me, you swine.”

The air became electric with tension as the Storm Trooper barked back, “Hold your tongue, you filthy Jew!”

The doctor turned defiantly, facing the group, and cried, “Well—, what are you waiting for? Why don’t you shoot me? Or are you only waiting for an excuse?” He paused and then, in a tone of satisfaction went on, “Well, I’ll give it to you. I gave two sons to Germany—two fine boys who couldn’t wait to be drafted to go to the front for the Fatherland. This is Germany’s reward to them.” He paused again and drew himself up, his voice growing stronger with dignity, “We Jews were good enough to die on the battle—field, but now that the fighting is over, we’re not good enough to live. You call us traitors, but you follow the greatest traitor the world has ever known—Adolf Hitler, your Fuehrer. Every time he opens his filthy mouth, he lies. But you’re blinded—you’re so steeped in lies you can’t see the truth! Well, what are you waiting for? You have your excuse now; why don’t you shoot me?”

The Storm Troopers, who had stood open-mouthed while he hurled his defiance at them, suddenly snapped back to consciousness.

“I’ll shut your filthy mouth for you,” one of them shouted, raising his gun.

“Shoot then!” the doctor flung back at him. “I’m ready. You can’t do anything to hurt me any more.”

“Can’t we?” cried the trooper and fired the first shot. The others followed swiftly and the volley rocked the room.

The doctor swayed before the storm of steel, staggered back against the table that held Peter, then slowly sagged to the floor.

The door burst open and Herr Schmidt rushed in.

His glance went quickly to his friend, sprawled grotesquely in a widening pool of blood.

Herr Schmidt went swiftly to the doctor’s side and knelt by his body. One searching hand told him what his heart already knew.

“So they’ve killed you, too, my friend,” he mumbled brokenly. “Oh, God!” He turned his angry old eyes on the Nazis and said fiercely, “You bloodthirsty cowards! You and your Hitler are the disgrace of Germany!”

“Who’s a coward?” demanded one of the Troopers, stepping forward angrily.

“You are! You’re brave only when there’s a mob of you and when your guns can do the talking against unarmed men.”

“So?” snapped the Nazi. “Then listen to it talk!”

He lifted the gun and emptied the bullets into the crouched body of the old man before him. Herr Schmidt shuddered before the impact of the heavy bullets and then collapsed across the body of his friend.

Heinrich, after a brief moment of indecision, had started down the corridor after his father. He had lagged along the path to the morgue, still fighting himself, when the sound of the shots hurried his steps. He burst into the room while the echo of the gun still resounded from the walls. One glance proved the folly of his delay.

“Father!” he cried and shouldered his way quickly through the ring of Storm Troopers to Herr Schmidt’s side. “Father! Speak to me, father! It’s Heinrich!” He lifted the old man gently. Herr Schmidt’s eyes fluttered open and he struggled valiantly to speak. “Heinrich,” he said and his voice sounded very far away, “Heinrich, my boy, it’s—it’s all wrong. You are all wrong. Believe me, it isn’t the Jews, nor the Catholics, nor the Protestants, who are ruining Germany; it’s Hitler—and you. The whole world some day will rise in arms against us because of this heartless bloodshed, this persecution of the innocent. I beg you, stop it while you can!”

Heinrich felt the eyes of the Storm Troopers boring into his back, could feel them stiffen at the words of the dying man. Half in fear and half in anguish because of the effort he knew those few words cost his father, he cried, “Hush, father! Please!”

“I must say it—I must!” Herr Schmidt rallied his feeble voice. “I taught you to think, Heinrich, to think straight—clearly. Hitler’s destroying Germany—and you’re helping him to do it. You must realize it, if all your power to think is not completely gone. You must realize it, Heinrich—and you must do something . . . before it’s too late . . . Heinrich ...” there was a rattle in his throat and the tired old voice trailed off.

Heinrich eased his father’s body gently to the floor, then rose to his feet. He straightened and, his face craggy in lines of grief, he walked stiffly through the line of Storm Troopers, out of the morgue, staring straight before him.

CHAPTER XXIX

Heinrich returned to his office slowly. He passed Nazi troopers in the street and mechanically returned their stiff salutes. For all that he responded to the deference shown him, he saw none of it consciously. Before his eyes the sight of his father, slumped across the body of Doctor Mendelsohn, remained, more vivid than anything that crossed his physical vision. And in his ears the words kept ringing, “. . . all wrong, Heinrich ... all wrong ... I taught you to think . . . straight . . . clearly ... all wrong . . . destroying Germany . . . you’re helping . . . you must know ... all wrong . . .”

Over and over again the words pounded into his brain, burning through the dull stupor of his grief.

He walked into his office on leaden feet, automatically removed his uniform cap and sank into the chair behind his desk, still staring blankly in front of him. Slowly, he shut his eyes and, propping his elbows on the desk, dropped his face into his hands.

For a long time he sat that way, unmoving, trying to shut out the awful memory of what he had seen, trying vainly to deafen the ears of his inner consciousness against the accusation those words of his father’s kept repeating remorselessly . . . “all wrong . . .all wrong . . . destroying Germany . . . you’re helping ... all wrong . . .”

Outside, in Gronau, the terror continued to rage.

The Gould family—Jewish father, Aryan mother and three small children—were surprised in their home by Storm Troopers who came to remove Herr Gould to a concentration camp.

The children, terror-stricken, clung to their mother’s skirts as she heroically held her husband’s arm in a tight grip and pleaded with the Nazis to have mercy, to allow them a few brief moments to escape—together. In a final, desperate effort to move them with her plea, she confided that she was expecting another child.

One of the Storm Troopers turned on her, sneering. “Going to have another, eh?” He regarded the husband through slitted eyes and smacked his lips in ribald glee. “My, my! Quite a man, aren’t you?” Herr Gould forgot his caution and instinctively leaped toward the man. He was upon him in a stride and flung him away from his wife. Infuriated, the Storm Trooper kicked viciously at Frau Gould. His heavy boot caught her in the abdomen and she dropped, writhing, to the floor.

His violence unspent, the Nazi whirled on Herr Gould and, before the man could lift a hand in his defense, a heavy blow behind the ear had sent him crashing to the floor. The Nazi swung his foot again and sent his boot thudding against Herr Gould’s ribs. Then he reached down and, getting a firm grip on the injured man’s collar, dragged him from the house. Frau Gould, her anxiety over her husband conquering her own agony for the moment, crawled painfully after them, pleading with the Storm Troopers not to harm her husband.

“Hold your tongue, you slut!” one of them roared at her. “You’re a disgrace to Germany, married to a dirty Jew. Shut your mouth or we’ll throw you into a concentration camp, too!”

The terrified children ran after their father. One of the Storm Troopers seized all three of them, herded them out into the yard, where Frau Gould still crawled after the man dragging her husband.

“Here!” shouted the Storm Trooper. “Keep these Jewish brats out of our way!” He shoved the children violently as he spoke, sending them hurtling across the yard toward their mother.

The Gould home was next to Heinrich’s headquarters and the commotion roused him from his lethargy. Drawn by the shouts, he went to the window and arrived there in time to see the Gould children tumbling about their mother.

Heinrich took an involuntary step toward the window at the sight, then checked himself as he realized the futility of any move he might make. But he found himself muttering to himself, echoing the words that were in his mind, “All wrong. All wrong.”

The sound of his own voice startled him. He looked around him, seeing the room as though for the first time. He looked down at his hands and shuddered at what he saw; a smear of blood lay across his palm. Heinrich stared at it, fascinated. It was his father’s blood, he knew.

“That’s right,” he mumbled under his breath. “No more than right. I killed him. His blood is on my hands. No more than right.” He shook his head slowly, as though to clear it, then added, “No. It’s wrong. All wrong.”

He shuffled across the room to the wash-basin in the corner. He washed his hands slowly, until the blood had been removed. Then he splashed cold water on his face. The chill shock of it brought some measure of comprehension back to him.

While he dried his hands, his eyes wandered to his desk, to the center drawer that held his personal papers, the drawer he always kept locked. He stared at the drawer for a long moment. Then, suddenly, he began to smile.

The smile froze on his face when, after a curt knock, the door opened and his adjutant stepped inside.

The man saluted smartly and began, “Your Excellency, I have the honor to report—”

“Not now,” Heinrich broke in. The man stopped, bewildered. Heinrich realized that his tone had been too gentle. He said, sharply, “I’m too busy to be bothered, now. Whatever you have to report can wait.”

"Yes, Your Excellency, but—”

“But nothing, aisel!” Heinrich roared. “You have your orders. Now get out! And see that I’m not disturbed—by you or anyone else. Understand? Dismissed!”

The adjutant clicked his heels and snapped to attention.

“Very good, Your Excellency.” He executed a brisk about-face and disappeared through the door.

Heinrich was there in a stride. He turned the key in the lock and hurried to his desk.

He opened the center drawer and stripped it bare, laying the papers he extracted in a methodical heap before him. In one pile he put a thick sheaf of foreign currency, of all countries and denominations. In another pile he placed a set of bankbooks, with the statements from American banks.

The sight of those bankbooks and the statements brought a grim smile to his face as all the thoughts that had been racing through his brain, all that his father had said, crystallized in that moment and left the truth, glaring and naked, before him, to see for the first time.

“Wrong,” he muttered to himself, “all wrong. You were right, father, right all the time. Only I was too blind to see it. But you taught me to think—clearly and straight—and now I see.”

He leafed through the bank statements. They represented a small fortune, held in American banks under a name different from his own. He chuckled grimly. His purpose in establishing these bank accounts, the act itself, had been no different from the action taken by all those high in the Nazi Party ranks. They had bled Germany, bled her white, but they had lined their own pockets and taken precautions for the future. Precautions. That was it. That was the reason for the foreign currency, the American bank accounts. Provision against the time when one might fall into disfavor with the regime, with Hitler. Provision against the time when the whole corrupt structure would crumble and fall.

Who could realize it better than those in the inner councils? The fact that they had made those provisions for the future was in itself proof enough that they had no faith in the righteousness of their cause. And for that this money had been taken from Germany.

“But it shall go back,” Heinrich told himself and knew that, for the first time since he had gone to Landsberg Prison, he spoke the truth. “It shall go back. Back to liberate the German people who were enslaved while it was taken. And I shall do it—I!”

He chuckled again to himself. Who better to do it than he? Plans were forming even as he sat there. He pushed the piles of money and papers aside, reached for pen and ink and began to write. Swiftly, he put his thoughts on paper, his plans for the future—for Germany’s future.

The money that had been wrenched from the German people would be used to liberate them. With the credentials he had at his elbow, he could flee the country, quickly, before any inkling of his intention could reach Berlin.

He would make his way to America. That would be his headquarters. There, where he was told that men were free, he would begin his fight for the freedom of his own people, the freedom he had helped to strip from them.

There would be other Germans there, others who had fled from the reign of terror he had helped to build. He would rally them about him and, with the money he had set aside, they would set the wheels in motion to fight the Nazi terror, to break the grip that was strangling Germany. He lacked no faith in the soundness of his plans. He had learned his lessons too well for that. His years with Hitler had taught him how the structure of the Nazi regime was built, how the giant monstrosity was built on its rotten foundation. What was it Goebbels had said? . . . “Repeat a lie often enough and loud enough and it will be accepted as the truth . . .”

He had learned that method well. But now he would repeat the truth—repeat it over and over and over—until all men came to learn it by heart and knew it for the truth. That constant repetition, he realized, in a flash, had been the thing that had deceived him from the first. Listening to Hitler in the beer halls, in prison, later in Berlin; over and over, Hitler had thundered his false dogma, until the very monotony of it had worn away Heinrich’s power of discrimination, until he had lost the gift his father had placed in his mind with loving hands—the power to think, straight and clearly.

But now that power had returned. His father’s death had brought it back. Now he could see the miserable sham, the cruel falsity, of it all, now that the cold light of his reason, unshrouded by the film of chicanery that had covered his eyes for years, shone upon it unimpaired.

He wrote savagely, purposefully. Hours went by.

At last, Heinrich straightened up. His plans were complete and on paper. Even a child could follow them now. A blueprint for a movement that would begin in America and sweep across the sea to crush the poisonous Nazi reptile beneath the strong heel of truth.

He pushed away from the desk, gathered his plans and his papers and bankbooks together and swept them into an attache case. The currency he pocketed. Then he went to the wardrobe, removed a uniform resplendent with braid and medals, and packed it swiftly into a valise. One glance around the room showed him that he was ready. His plans were complete, ready to be put into execution. The time for his escape had come.

He gathered his baggage and unlocked the door. Stepping out into the corridor, he found the adjutant confronting him.

“I must leave immediately for a brief trip,” Heinrich said brusquely. “You will remain in charge until I return.”

“Very good, Your Excellency,” the adjutant saluted. Then he added, “Before Your Excellency leaves, will he be so kind as to accept my report?”

“Very well,” Heinrich said impatiently. “What is it?”

The adjutant snapped to attention again and barked, “It is a report regarding our execution of the Fuehrer’s orders to separate all wives and husbands concerned in Jewish—Aryan marriages in this district.”

Heinrich stiffened a little. Then, forcing himself to control his voice, he said carefully, “And what is your report?”

“I have the honor to report, sir, that but six families in the district remain to be accounted for. We shall deal with them within the hour. Your Excellency will have my complete and final report on your return.”

“See that you do,” Heinrich snapped. “That is all. Dismissed.”

He returned the adjutant’s salute perfunctorily and handed his valise to an orderly. While the man placed it in the car for him and then opened the door to permit him to enter, Heinrich’s mind was working furiously.

He brushed away the question of having a chauffeur drive him and took the wheel of the speedy touring car himself, still thinking about the significance of the adjutant’s report.

All Jewish—Aryan marriages must be dissolved! Fritz would never leave Ilsa. He would be sent to a concentration camp. And Ilsa. Ilsa! The thought of her name sent a thousand memories flooding back into his brain and his heart. Ilsa! The love he had buried—along with his finer sensibilities and his power to think—rose again and engulfed him. He hesitated, as realization of what his thoughts meant swept over him. Ilsa would not leave without Fritz and Karl. She was too loyal, too devoted for that. And if Fritz left the country, it would mean that he—Heinrich—could not. What of his work? What of his plans? What of his mission, the mission he had newly set for himself?

The answers came as quickly as the questions. Fritz. Fritz could carry on for him. The plans in the attache case, he had told himself, were simple enough for a child to follow. Fritz was no child. Fritz could follow them as well, execute them as perfectly and with as telling effect as though Heinrich himself were at the helm. A smile twisted across his face as he made his decision.

He had just passed a crossroad. Now he slammed on the brakes and brought the heavy car squealing to a stop. He turned quickly, back to the crossroad. There, struck by a sudden thought, he stopped again and got out of the car.

He went to the tool chest in the rear and quickly removed a pair of rubber-handled wire cutters. With them, it was the work of a moment to snip six-foot lengths of all the telegraph and telephone lines leading in and out of Gronau.

His task completed, he surveyed the job with satisfaction. Gronau was completely cut off from the rest of the country; it would be a matter of hours before they could find the breaks and repair them.

He smiled slowly as he threw the car into gear again. He had smoothed the road before and behind Ilsa. Only one thing more remained to be done.

He swung around the bend in the crossroad, setting the car on the fork that led to the Mendelsohn home.

Bad news travels quickly and it was not long after the actual shootings that the Mendelsohn family heard with despair how Doctor Mendelsohn and Herr Schmidt had been killed. Such was the fever of their anxiety to escape, however, that they were spared the misery of mourning for their dead. Their hearts might ache, but not before they were safely in a land where such heartache was legally accorded them.

Feverishly the remaining members of the family—Fritz, Ilsa, Frau Mendelsohn and little Karl—rushed about in preparation for their flight, snatching up everything of real and sentimental value which could be stuffed into their battered valises.

Throughout this operation, Fritz gloomily shook his head from time to time. Finally he said, “It’s no use. All this packing is in vain. I can’t get a car or a wagon or even a wheelbarrow. Everyone’s afraid the Nazis will kill them if it’s discovered that they helped a Jew to escape. Even money doesn’t help.” “Please, Fritz,” Ilsa pleaded, “we can’t give up. We’ve got to get out of here, at least for Karl’s sake if not for our own.”

Frau Mendelsohn agreed. “Ilsa’s right, Fritz.” Turning, she walked quietly toward her room. “Where are you going, mama?” Ilsa asked.

“Just to get a few things of your papa’s to take with me,” she called back as she entered the bedroom.

When the door had closed behind her, Ilsa said, in an undertone, “Fritz, I’m worried about mama.

First Peter, then papa—I’m terribly afraid she won’t be able to hold out.”

“Nonsense,” Fritz reassured her. “Your mother’s a strong woman and she . . .”

A shot from the direction of the bedroom interrupted his theorizing.

CHAPTER XXX

The note which Frau Mendelsohn had hurriedly written before pressing the gun barrel to her temple was revealing in its brevity.

“I had to stay here with my husband and my three boys,” it read. “Forgive me. Escape quickly, my children, and may God help you and keep you.”

With an almost uncanny wisdom, Frau Mendelsohn had timed her death so that it could not possibly interfere with the impending escape of her children.

Now, in their fresh misery, they were so pressed for time that their energies were necessarily turned from the luxury of honest weeping to an increased anxiety to be out from under the yoke of the bestial injustice which had thrown its cloak of destruction over an entire family of simple, honest and hardworking Germans.

Redoubling their efforts to finish their packing, they avoided out of consideration for each other, the question of where they would go once they were over the border. Not once had they spoken of their destination—only of their desire to flee from the erstwhile placidity of their homes.

When there was no more jamming of suitcases to be done, when the absolutely necessary articles of every day existence had been accounted for, they breathed more regularly and sat for a few minutes to consider their ultimate problem.

“Now that we’re ready, Ilsa,” Fritz said, “we must decide on where to go—how to get there.”

From outside their home came a sudden screech as an automobile slid to a stop, and in another minute hurried steps were heard. Terrified, they stiffened and waited. Then the door flung open and Heinrich confronted his brother and Ilsa.

“Isn’t it enough for you to send your Nazi officers? Must you come here to gloat over us yourself?” Fritz moved toward Heinrich with the obvious intention of throwing him out.

“Wait, Fritz!” Heinrich retreated before his brother, trying to hold him off. “Listen!”

Ilsa’s hand on his arm halted Fritz. He waited, giving his brother grudging permission to continue. Heinrich dropped the suitcase to the floor and offered the attache case he carried to Fritz.

He said swiftly, “Look, Fritz. In here are all the necessary papers, in the valise a uniform. My car is outside. Put on the uniform, take the car and make a break for the border.” Fritz’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Heinrich continued eagerly, “No one will stop you. It’s an official car. I’ve made out passports in the name of Bruckner. In the attache case are notes about the Bruckners you’ll hare to know; instructions for you to follow. It means your future, Fritz; you’ll be safe once you get out of Gronau.”

Fritz’s lips twisted in a caricature of a smile.

“Why so good to us, Your Excellency? Or is this a special refinement of Nazi torture that you have reserved for us?”

Heinrich recoiled before the lash of his words and Ilsa cried, “Fritz!”

He whirled on her, stung by the reproach in her voice.

“Well?” he demanded. “What do you want me to do? Shall I fall on the neck of this renegade . . . embrace him, perhaps? Shall I congratulate him,” his voice raked across the room, “for murdering our father?”

Heinrich lifted his arms in front of his face, defensively, then slumped into a chair before them, his face buried in his hands.

Ilsa took an involuntary step toward him, but Fritz ordered, “Don’t touch the murderer. We’re wasting time. Let’s pack.”

“Fritz!” she protested. “Your own brother! You  can't—

“Can’t I? He could order my father’s death—”

“No!” Heinrich lifted a tortured face. “No!” he cried again. “It was not so, Fritz—I swear to you!”

Ilsa echoed, “Fritz!”

The deadly chill of his voice froze her to silence. “Do you expect me to believe anything this . . . this murderer says? The man who killed all your family . . . his own father?” He went on, the words tumbling over one another in his haste, “Even if the order didn’t come directly from him, he killed them as surely as if he fired the shots himself. . . .”

“Fritz,” Ilsa, her eyes riveted on Heinrich’s haggard face, made a final plea. “He really is suffering . . . look at him.”

“Look at that Nazi swine? Never! His suffering is only part of his trickery, some of the play-acting he’s learned from his master.”

Little Karl pattered into the room. At sight of Heinrich, a tiny arm went up. The childish treble cut the silence, “Heil, Hitler!”

Ilsa’s arm went protectively about her son as her husband’s face darkened. Before he could speak, Heinrich was out of the chair, on his knees beside the boy.

“Don’t say that, little soldier,” he said gently. “It is bad. And it hurts your mother when you say it. Promise you won’t ever say it again.” The little blond head went back and the bright blue eyes searched Ilsa’s. Slowly she nodded and Karl repeated the motion. Heinrich turned to Fritz, who stared at them. “If you won’t do as I say for yourself, or for Ilsa, you must—for him.”

For an instant Fritz seemed about to yield, then he shook his head slowly, as though to clear it. He said dully, “You killed my father.”

“You fool!” Heinrich, still on his knees, flung at his brother. “You’re wasting precious time. They’ll be here any minute now.”

“You killed my father,” Fritz repeated in the same flat voice.

Heinrich leaped to his feet.

“Don’t I know it?” he blazed. “What do you think I’m made of?” He ripped open his uniform tunic in a frenzy of anguish and beat his fist upon his naked chest. “I’m made of flesh and blood, the same as you. I loved our father, just as you did.” His voice dropped suddenly, shaking. “It happened before my eyes ... I let them kill the finest man that ever lived. . . .”

"You killed him,” Fritz corrected.

Heinrich put his hands on his brother’s shoulders and shook him fiercely.

“All right! Say what you will, call me what you like! But my eyes are open now—open to all the falseness of it, the infamy, the intrigue, the bloodshed—the murder. I’m through with it all, do you hear?” He paused and shook Fritz’s shoulders again, gently this time. In a lower voice, he said, “You must listen to me, Fritz. You must believe me—for the love I once bore Ilsa—for the love I still bear her.”

Fritz looked up quickly, disbelief in his eyes. Heinrich nodded slowly.

“It’s true,” he said. “I’ve always loved her; I’ve never stopped loving her, no matter what I told myself ... no matter what I did to try to forget it.”

Fritz’s eyes hardened suddenly. “Then why—” he began, but Heinrich interrupted quickly.

“What’s done is done, Fritz. It can’t be undone, God help me. I can’t do anything for the dead, but I must do this for the living. For Ilsa . . . for Karl . . . for all the Ilsas and Karls of Germany.” He shook his brother’s shoulders again and demanded hoarsely, “Can’t you believe me?”

Ilsa put her hand on his arm and said quietly, “I believe you, Heinrich.”

Fritz stared into his wife’s eyes for a long moment. Then he turned to his brother and said, tonelessly, “What can you do?”

Heinrich laughed shortly. “Do? You forget, Fritz —I’m a big man in the party. I’m the Governor.

The Governor—think of that!” He laughed again, harshly. Then he caught himself and opened the valise, sending its contents tumbling to the floor. He said, in an eager whisper, “Here. Put these on. No one will dare question you while you wear this uniform. And your passports and other papers are in order. The car is waiting outside. Give it all it will take. It’s one of the fastest cars in Germany. If you leave before they get here, you’re safe. Head for the border. In an hour you should be in Basle. They won’t follow you to Switzerland.”

Fritz, slipping into the Nazi uniform, halted suddenly. He said, “But they can telephone ahead.” “No,” Heinrich chuckled. “I’ve taken care of that. I’ve cut every wire leading from my headquarters; Gronau will be cut off from the rest of Germany for two hours or more.” He thrust the attache case at Ilsa. “Take this. In it you’ll find foreign currency of all countries and denominations. Use it to get to America. You’ll be safe there. Once there, you can claim a small fortune on deposit in an American bank; you will find complete instructions in here.”

At the question in Ilsa’s eyes, Heinrich smiled wryly and added, “All of us who are high in the Nazi councils have done the same; we believe in our Fuehrer’s teaching of preparedness.”

“No,” Fritz broke in, decisively. “I’ll do as you say to save my wife and child, but I won’t touch your blood-money.”

The roar of a motor, throttle wide open, approaching the house, stirred Heinrich to action.

“Here they come” he cried, pushing them toward the back door. “Get out, quickly”

“We won’t take your blood-money,” Fritz repeated.

Heinrich smiled suddenly. “You must—not for yourselves, but for others. Take the money, but use it to help those who have suffered as you have.” He nodded, thinking better of his plan, “That’s it; this money was ground from the slavery of Germany—it is only proper that it be used now to free Germany once more. Ilschen, promise you will make him do it!”

Ilsa, herding Karl and Fritz before her, paused.

“I promise, Heinrich,” she said.

Heinrich seized her hand in his and kissed it. “And when you are working to free Germany,” he said in a husky whisper, “think of me sometimes . . . kindly, if you can . . . and . . . and try . . . in time . . . to forgive me.”

Ilsa halted before the door. “I forgive you,” she said softly. She turned and swiftly kissed his cheek.

A car braked to a squealing stop at the front of the house.

“Go!” he whispered with fierce joy. “Go! I’ll hold them until you are safe!”

He slammed the door upon them. He turned as rifle-butts thundered against the front door and burst it open, then, smiling, bolted the door through which the others had left while booted feet stamped through the house toward him.

The inner door was flung open and a squad of Storm Troopers streamed in. They halted at sight of Heinrich.

“Your Excellency!” the sergeant exclaimed. Heinrich inclined his head in a brisk nod. "But—but, Herr Governor—we thought the Jews were here!”

Heinrich shook his head. A motor roared into life at the rear of the house and ground into motion with clashing gears. Heinrich smiled and said, “They were here, but they’ve escaped.”

“He’s gone mad!” one of the troopers gasped.

“No he hasn’t,” the sergeant grated. “It was his brother and that Jewess wife of his—he helped them escape! After them, men! We can still stop them!”

“Not so fast, my brave little Nazis,” Heinrich said. He fingered the heavy Luger significantly. “Would you deprive me of your company?”

They fell back before the menace of the gun and the cold recklessness in Heinrich’s eyes. He leaned against the wall and told them, while his left hand reached his cheek and touched the place where Ilsa had kissed him, “Just a few minutes more—and they will be safely on their way.”

“Keppler!” bawled the sergeant, suddenly. “Keppler! You out in the yard! After that car! After them!”

Heinrich’s smile faded quickly. He lifted the heavy gun and fired once. The sergeant coughed and sagged slowly toward the floor.

“I taught you too well, my friend,” said Heinrich. A sound in the yard arrested him. From the corner of his eye he could see the open car bouncing through the yard, headed for the back gate.

He was at the window in a stride, smashing the glass with the heavy muzzle of the gun. After one menacing flourish toward the men he held at bay, he rested the muzzle on the window-frame and took careful aim. The gun leaped in his hand, but he shouted aloud with joy as the driver of the car slumped behind the wheel. Tires shrieking protest, the machine leaped forward crazily, swerving from side to side on the road, then went careening madly into a ditch. As it disappeared from sight, there came the dull crash of grinding metal and a sheet of flame leaped up from the spot.

The sound was still in the air when one gasped word intruded. “Fire!” said the sergeant, weakly.

Heinrich, hearing the click of the rifles, whirled.

A brazen sheet of flame seared his face and the room rocked with the echo of a volley as a dozen heavy hammers pounded through his chest. Heinrich staggered back against the wall. The Luger slipped from his fingers to the floor and his head sank wearily down toward the bloody pulp that had been his chest.

He murmured, while the blackness beat down upon him, “They are safe, now . . . Father. . . .”

His knees turned to water and he sagged forward, and one hand crept again to his cheek. Then he jackknifed to the floor. But just before the glaze settled on his eyes forever, he smiled . . . once . . . the smile of a man who sees a vision.