The Ambassador

by Yehuda Avner

  Ben-Gurion gripped Dan’s forearms and stared at him, his eyes hard and probing.

  “I cannot even begin to express how proud I am to have been with you during this historic time, Prime Minister,” Dan said.

  Ben-Gurion regarded him tenderly for an instant, then tilted his head disdainfully, as though he had heard something that meant little to him. “You’d better get used to not being with me.”

  “Well, I hope to be back from the army before too long. Back with you in your office.”

  “You’re no longer needed as my assistant. But you’re not going to war.”

  Dan started to protest, but fell silent when Ben-Gurion did, briefly, smile. “I need you to be my ambassador,” he explained.

  “To where?” Dan couldn’t stand to be away from Jerusalem. Especially during a war. He wondered if he was to be sent to Washington or London.

  “Not to where. To whom.” Ben-Gurion reached up and put his hand on Dan’s shoulder. “To Hitler.”

  Chapter 7

  Berlin, May 1938

  The Chancellery corridor stretched so far its polished marble floor seemed to narrow toward the seventeen-foot-high double doors, like a rail track approaching some dark gateway. Dan Lavi trod carefully on the shiny surface, his neck stiff in a starched collar and white bow tie. He mirrored every move of the Wehrmacht adjutant who accompanied him, keeping to the careful choreography of diplomatic protocol. When he went to see Ben-Gurion, he wore neither hat, gloves, nor tie. In Israel, the rejection of formal protocol was prized as an assertion of the Jewish state’s independence and unique character. But here, rules were sacrosanct. So Dan carried his hat in his left hand, as Hauptmann Brückner did, and suffered the constriction of the white vest and tailcoat. He would give these people no additional reason to despise him. His mission was more important than his comfort.

  “Our embassy is in the house next door to your aunt’s home, I believe,” he said to the adjutant.

  The ornate house on Monbijoustrasse had belonged to a Jewish banker named Loeb. It had been taken over by the Reich’s foreign ministry when Loeb fled to the United States. The banker had quietly agreed to fund the establishment of an Israeli embassy, as an act of Zionism and a finger in the eye of those who had robbed him, so the ministry had been persuaded to give it over to the meager group of diplomats Dan had been allowed to bring with him as his staff. Soon after their arrival in Berlin, Dan had received a visit from his immediate neighbor, Countess Hannah von Bredow, a granddaughter of Chancellor Bismarck. She told Dan that her nephew, Captain Hasso Brückner, was an adjutant to Hitler, his liaison to the Wehrmacht. “But don’t hold that against him,” she had said. “He’s a darling boy, really. He can’t help being taken in by that mad Austrian corporal. Everyone is, just now. It can’t last.”

  Walking down the Chancellery corridor, Dan wasn’t so sure of the Countess’s assessment. Brückner’s stern jaw and stiff march matched the sinister stance of the SS honor guard and the intimidating architecture of the Chancellery.

  “You’re very lucky to have found such a suitable location,” he said. His voice was crisp and tense. He made no comment about his aunt. It occurred to Dan that these Nazis were more on edge about today’s occasion than he was.

  You’re on a diplomatic mission, Dan told himself. Try to build a relationship here. With the darling boy. “I gather from your aunt that you are the great-grandson of Count von Bismarck. What do you think the chancellor would’ve thought of—”

  “Your embassy will soon be extremely busy.” Brückner snarled in a low murmur, as though the words forced their way, overriding his adherence to the silence and formality of the ceremony. “With Jews wanting to get out.”

  “We certainly look forward to facilitating their emigration.”

  Brückner snorted. “As rats immigrate to a garbage can.”

  Chapter 8

  The SS honor guard’s drum roll sounded through the Chancellery. Reinhard Heydrich watched Hitler’s posture stiffen. He knew the signs of rage in the Führer. It grew, like his speeches, low key at the opening but building to a hysteria that electrified his voice and limbs. If Heydrich had been given to outward reaction, he would have sighed at the prospect of the lengthy harangue he saw was coming.

  “An honor guard for this swine,” Hitler snapped.

  “Protocol compels us, my Führer,” Heydrich said. “Though it’s hard to use the term ‘honor’ in connection to the subhuman in whose presence the drums are being sounded.”

  Hitler stumped to his desk. “If it wasn’t you who asked this of me, Heydrich. If it wasn’t you.”

  Heydrich understood why Hitler showed him such favor. When the Führer looked within himself, he saw what Heydrich saw when he stood before a mirror. Dark hair and medium stature notwithstanding, Hitler believed himself to be an Aryan hero just like his elegant, fair-haired security chief, who stood three inches over six feet. “‘The Blond Beast,” some called Heydrich. To others he was “The Hangman.” But not to Hitler. To him, Heydrich was the man who got things done, the bureaucrat who knew how to break the rules, a man of insatiable ambition, profound intelligence, and superhuman ruthlessness. He had been appointed the head of the Gestapo when it became a national force. He had drawn up the list of Brownshirt leaders to be wiped out on the Night of Long Knives. He fomented the demonstrations that became the pretext for the Nazis to move into Austria, and implemented the decrees whereby enemies of the Reich disappeared “under cover of night and fog.” Most of all, he was the man Hitler would’ve liked to have been.

  “The drums are not an honor, for him. More like the accompaniment of a criminal’s final walk to the gallows,” Hitler said. “The swine does not know it yet, but that trek is under way for his entire verminous people.”

  Heydrich suspected Hitler wanted to do more than expel the Jews from Europe—he believed the Führer’s ultimate plan was their total extermination. The Jews were being allowed to flee to the Holy Land because there were more pressing issues to deal with. When he first came to power, Hitler focused on ridding the Reich of communists and liberals. With the help of Heydrich and his network of concentration camps, that issue was now settled. Next, Hitler would need land, whether at the cost of war or not. But Heydrich guessed that very soon he would be called upon to formulate a plan for the Jews.

  Hitler spread his fingers over the sword inlaid in the surface of his desk. The blade was partially withdrawn from the scabbard. It was intended to make those who entered his enormous office wonder when he would swing it at their necks. He never sat at the desk—it was five yards long and made him look small. Instead he stood behind it, while those facing him squirmed in their chairs. A bowl of Lutschbonbons lay halfway along the sword. Hitler took one of the fruit drops, then snatched his hand behind his back, rubbing his thumb over the raised Swastika molded into the candy. Heydrich was accustomed to such nervous motions, when Hitler’s grandiosity was suddenly undercut by an uncharacteristic gesture of insecurity. The Führer was intimidated by him. Hitler was lazy and Heydrich was a workaholic. Hitler had no time for the systems and policies and networks that Heydrich employed to control and ensnare people. Hitler needed sugar just as he required the adulation of other people. Heydrich prized the bitterness with which people feared him.

  “We are in a life-or-death struggle,” Hitler said.

  “Yes, my Führer, it is so.”

  Hitler’s eyes took on a strange, fanatical gleam, looking inward to where the world’s future lay. He spoke quietly, as though the words came to him in a vision. “This is a day for which my greatness has prepared me. A weaker leader, one who had not set great objectives for the German people and the German Reich as I have done, would reject the idea of accepting this criminal Jew in the State Chancellery as an obscenity.”

  The drums halted. Hitler glanced at the double doors of his office, three times the height of the SS men stationed at each side of them.

  Heydrich knew the protocol. It was timed to t
he minute, down to the last beat, as if by the metronome in his study where he practiced on his violin each night. The Jew would be passing through the cavernous corridor now. The architect had made the floor of polished marble, so that visitors had to concentrate just to stay on their feet. Though not the Jew, Heydrich thought. He will be accustomed to slipperiness.

  “In 1933, I ventured an accord with the Zionist cabal in Palestine. Those Jews who emigrated from Germany would be allowed to take their property with them if they left for Palestine.” Warmed up, Hitler’s voice was powerful, his r’s rolling like the percussion of a machine gun. “Those who departed for other countries would have to pay the Reich Flight Tax and lose at least half of their wealth.”

  “About fifty thousand Jews have left the Reich for Palestine since your accord, my Führer.”

  Hitler hesitated. Statistics were not his field. They threw him off. Heydrich blinked slowly, a silent signal for the Führer to go on.

  In his mind, Hitler entered a battle with the Jews. He firmed his lips. He was on the field, on the attack, resolute. “By removing the Jews, I eliminate the possibility of some sort of revolutionary core or nucleus being created in Germany. If our opponents were victorious, the German people would be eradicated. The Bolsheviks would slaughter millions and millions and millions of our intellectuals. Anyone not murdered by a shot in the neck would be deported. Children would be taken away and eliminated. And this entire bestial plan has been organized by the Jews. Don’t expect anything from me other than the ruthless upholding of the national interest in such a way as to obtain the greatest effect and benefit for the German nation.”

  “You may count on me, my Führer.”

  “The arrival of this criminal Jew here today represents an opportunity for us to cleanse the Reich more fully.” Hitler struck his fist into his hand. “Until now, under the British Mandatory authority, immigration to Palestine would sometimes go up, sometimes down. When it went up, the Arabs would complain, so the British would cut the number of Jews they let in. They wanted to protect their oil interests in the Arab region. In response, the Jewish cabals in London and New York would issue their orders, and their henchmen on Downing Street would increase the quotas to allow more Jews to immigrate. Because policy is dictated to men like that asshole Chamberlain by Jews. He is in the pocket of the Jews.”

  Each time he said the word “Jew,” Hitler’s voice rasped with derision.

  The Führer slapped his thigh. “The emigration was not fast enough for me. I cannot allow the National Socialist project to be dependent on the political balancing act of weak-willed shills for the Jews of London. I am not interested in politics. I am interested in destiny. So now, thanks to the pathetic League of Nations, Palestine and its British regime is no more. Now there is Israel.” He stamped his foot and barked a sarcastic laugh. “I knew that there was always the possibility that the Jews would win a state for themselves. Such is the extent of their malign influence. I thought it would take longer— another ten years at least, but then the British came along with their Peel Commission and recommended a Jewish state, and here it is. So, the German people shall have their reckoning with the Jews earlier than anyone expected. That is a good thing.”

  An adjutant opened the big doors. He started to cross the floor, but Hitler waved him back. He knew it was time. The Jew would be approaching the reception hall. Hitler walked to the door, stopping by the huge globe that stood taller than a man. The architect of the Chancellery had built it for Hitler so that he could ponder the range of his future power. He spun the giant sphere and thumped his fist down on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean.

  “This criminal Jew may call his patch of desert a state if he wishes, though I think he will hardly dare to once he has observed the functioning of the German Reich. He may even call it a place of refuge. I will call it what it is—a dumping ground for Polish peasants and Ukrainian Reds. Let us hope they will now be joined by the parasitic bankers and shopkeepers from within our midst.”

  “The security service is implementing your policy to the letter, my Führer.” Heydrich had worked hard in committee rooms and cabinet chambers to ensure that the SS was responsible for the Jewish issue, over all other government ministries. It wasn’t only a security question, or a matter of politics. The very blood of the German people depended on the implementation of the Führer’s ideas. And the blood of the Germans ran with absolute purity in the veins of the SS.

  “I want to be rid of the Jews and their degenerate practices. This criminal wants Jews. So let him take them.” Hitler folded his arms, slowly, a grand gesture of finality. “While he still can.”

  Chapter 9

  Mythic portrayals of Nordic heroes and classical archetypes glowered from between the pillars of blood-red marble on the walls of the reception room. Dan waited in the center of the floor, beside Brückner. The massive doors in the far wall swung back, the motionless SS guards at each side like hinges, screwed into place by their steel helmets. Dan glimpsed Hitler’s private office beyond the doors. Two figures emerged. Heydrich, tall and blond, wearing the black uniform of the SS, his face expressionless. And the hunched figure of Adolf Hitler, hands clasping and unclasping, clasping and unclasping with each step across the marble toward Dan. He came to a halt a few yards away, staring down at Dan’s shoes. The air was still and, once the adjutant had clicked his heels, all was quiet. Dan felt the invisible presence of hundreds of thousands whose lives depended on him, and on the conduct of his office. They crowded round him for a glimpse of the man who would decide their fate.

  Hitler widened his eyes and linked his hands in front of his gray double-breasted jacket. He seemed to expand out of himself, like a silent-movie vampire, a nightmare dragon floating on the air in a child’s story.

  The adjutant snapped out his arm in salute. “My Führer, the ambassador respectfully requests that he may present to you his credentials.”

  Dan noted the omission. The name of his country. Were he the ambassador of the United States, the young officer would have announced “the ambassador of the United States.” Or of Belgium or Mongolia, Iceland or Peru. But he had not given the name of the new state that had sent Dan to be its first emissary to the capital of the German Reich. The corner of Dan’s mouth rose very slightly, lifted by the brazenness of independence, the insolence toward old masters, that his country cultivated.

  Hitler brought his chin up as though at some effrontery. Did he read my thoughts? Dan wondered. He reminded himself that his job was to manage Hitler, not defy him. He made his face as neutral as he could, but he doubted that would be enough. His every sinew was an affront to Nazi ideology. Even in formal morning dress, anyone on a Berlin street could have picked him out as a Jew. His hair was combed back and pomaded, yet uncontrollable curls still rose like a glimmering halo over the crown of his head. Even if the Mediterranean sun hadn’t deepened his skin to the tobacco tone of an Arab goatherd, it would have been several shades darker than that of Hitler’s beloved Aryans.

  Adjutant Brückner cleared his throat and tilted his head, indicating to Dan that he should take the next step.

  Dan addressed Hitler in the perfect German that was his mother tongue, the language of his parents and grandparents. The language in which his father wrote and published countless papers as a professor of ancient history at Humboldt University, before he left Berlin for Palestine. But Dan’s ancestors had never spoken German in quite this way. They had employed it to make themselves acceptable to the Germans around them, to disguise and deny their true selves. Dan used the language now to say exactly who he was, and the very words seemed to glow in his mouth, illuminating the image and soul of his people for the Germans forced to listen to him. “Allow me to present the letters of credence by which Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion has appointed me to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of—”

  Brückner coughed loudly. Hitler glared at his shiny boots. Heydrich licked his lips.

  “—of the St
ate of Israel to the German Reich.”

  Dan held out a slim envelope. His arm quivered. He relaxed his muscles and his hand steadied.

  With a swift motion, Hitler grabbed the envelope and flicked it toward Heydrich. His mustache twitched. Dan thought it was thicker, bushier than it seemed in the newsreels.

  The words of the Old Man echoed in Dan’s mind in Ben-Gurion’s nasal Polish accent, orders delivered in between reports from Shmulik on the first maneuvers of the war of independence. “You will dine with the Devil, Dan. You will do everything the Devil requires. Whatever it takes, you will maintain the transfer of Jews from Germany to Israel.” Then Ben-Gurion had moved closer to Dan, speaking quietly and with concern, as a father to a son. “Remember not to fear him. After all, he thinks it is you who is the Devil.”

  Hitler spun around and headed back to his personal office. Heydrich went with him. Dan understood what the presence of the tall blond security chief meant. Any other ambassador would have been greeted by Hitler and the foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, but the Jews were the business of the SS, the shock troops of the Nazi future.

  The door slammed. Dan’s scalp prickled and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Hitler was worse than he had expected, more than just a political leader with a vicious hatred for Jews—those were common enough all over Europe. Dan couldn’t determine just how bad this man was, but he felt it in his stomach. He sensed that the imperiled souls crowding the reception hall experienced the same disturbance in their guts. The invisible desperation of all those Jews needled him, buffeted him like a panicked animal herded through the gates of an abattoir. For an instant, Dan felt fear.

  The diplomatic protocol said there had to be a handshake. But Hitler wouldn’t touch a Jew, and neither would a senior SS man. It fell to the adjutant to reach out his arm. He did so with his lips twisted, as though they were clamped down on the curses he wished to spill over the Israeli ambassador.