Munich Signature

by Bodie Thoene

  And yet Israel was not frightened by the shouts of fear and hopelessness that echoed around him. In the arms of his mother he was content.

  39

  Birds in the Eye of the Storm

  In this same hour, all of Europe seemed to be running before the winds. The howling of the gale had drowned out the cries of the Darien. Entire nations lost resolve and bent as the gale approached their borders.

  Tonight in the home of Admiral Canaris in Berlin, General Halder sat among the other conspirators to listen to Hitler’s speech over the radio. Twenty-five thousand faithful party members cheered the Führer as he spoke to them from the Berlin Sportspalast. Millions of others listened with dread to his words. Only this handful among the German High Command knew that this was the Führer’s last speech, his last threat.

  “We have him where we want him.” General Hoepner rubbed his hands together. “Here in Berlin we will bag the whole lot of them at once.”

  “Tonight the people hear the voice of Hitler and tremble. On Saturday, when the Führer gives the order to march, it will be General Halder who speaks,” said Canaris quietly. “And then the world will see that this madness is Hitler’s alone.”

  Straight and tense, General Halder gazed out the window as the tumult of the crowds at the Sportspalast filled the room. “Perhaps we should not wait until Saturday,” he interjected. “Perhaps we should arrest them all tonight. Himmler. Göring. Goebbels. My Regular Army divisions could march within the hour. We could take Hitler after his speech, even as he leaves the Sportspalast.”

  The men looked questioningly at one another. Would it not be easier to accomplish the coup tonight? Three days before the army was scheduled by Hitler to invade the Czech-Sudetenland?

  “No, no,” Hoepner concluded. “The plan is right as we have conceived it. There are twenty-five thousand Nazis in the Sportspalast. We do not want to contend with them as well. Better for us to bide our time. Arrest Hitler in the staff room as he hovers over his maps like a vulture.”

  Others among the conspirators nodded. The coup against Hitler must not become a massacre. It must not be announced until it was accomplished. Hitler and his head henchmen were in Berlin. The plan of the army staff officers could not go wrong!

  The roaring of the broadcast fell to silence. The Führer was about to state his final ultimatum to the Czechs and to the world.

  The voice of Adolf Hitler reached into the room.

  “On February 22 of this year, I made a fundamental demand calling for the uniting of German minorities and the return of German colonies lost in the war. My nation heard it and understood what I meant.

  “One statesman in Austria, Schuschnigg, failed to understand. He has been removed, and my promise has been fulfilled.

  “For the second time I made my demand at the Reich party’s Nuremberg convention. Again the nation heard!”

  Once again the spell was conjured and cast. The whole world could hear the tumultuous applause of those in the Sportspalast. The Führer held them by the throat as he began to build one statement upon another. His volume increased, and with it, the volume of applause.

  “Today there must be no vestige of doubt in the world. It is not a Führer or a man who speaks, but the whole German people. And if I am now spokesman of the German people, I know at this hour that all the listening millions of these people are one, that they endorse these words and make them their own testimony. Let other statesmen search themselves and see if it is the same with them.”

  Thomas knew these words were spoken directly to Chamberlain who paced, alone and frightened, in his offices in London. The people of England were torn and resentful at the thought of fighting a war for the nation of Czechoslovakia. In France, the leaders were besieged with opposition. This claim of Hitler that he alone had the full assent of his people must have galled other leaders of nations. Those men could not fully know the depth of opposition against the German leader! They would not know until Saturday, when German divisions ordered to march turned their guns instead on the Chancellery and marched back to Berlin.

  “Hold firm!” Thomas whispered to Chamberlain and Daladier as if they could hear. “Do not waver in your commitment.” Thomas looked around the room at the pensive faces of Germany’s finest men. Some had closed their eyes as if they prayed. All seemed determined to go through with the plan.

  “The question that has been agitating us most deeply for the past months and weeks has been well known to those leaders. Its name is not so much Czechoslovakia. Its name is rather Herr President Beneš. This name unites all that is agitating millions today and drives them to despair and fills them with fanatic determination!”

  Shouts of “Bloodhound!” and “Viper!” echoed from the hall.

  “German foreign policy is distinct from the democracies. It is fixed on our philosophy of life. The new Third Reich is based upon safeguarding the existence of our German people. We are not interested in oppressing other peoples. We do not wish to have other nationalities among us. We want to live after our own patterns and let others live after theirs. This racially bound conception leads to limitation of our foreign policy. We want only what is ours!”

  Halder and Canaris exchanged glances. Halder had heard enough. He sighed and shook his head. He had seen the plans of Hitler’s conquest of Europe. Every word the Führer uttered tonight was a lie. From the Czech borders, Poland would be next—then Russia, then France. Even England.

  “There is a limit beyond which I cannot go. How right I was is proven first by the peaceful union of Austria with the Reich. Now we must confront this last problem to be solved. This is the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe, but it is also a demand on which I shall not yield. Herr Beneš refuses to withdraw from this territory. He refuses to give legal title to an area populated by racial Germans and being raped by the Czechs. The Germans want peace; the Slovak people want peace! This tyrant Beneš will rush us into war. This territory will come under German rule because it is essentially inhabited by Germans! The final boundaries, however, I will leave to a vote of the people there.”

  Canaris smiled bitterly. Such a vote of approval in Austria had been rigged from the beginning. It would be no different if Hitler took over the Sudetenland from the Czechs. How could the French and British leaders believe such words?

  “I have now addressed a memorandum to the British government with this last and final German proposal. Territory that is racially German and wants to join Germany is to go with Germany.”

  The military men gathered in the room tonight knew what acceptance of such a proposal would mean to the nation of Czechoslovakia. If that mountainous region that defended the Czechs from Germany was simply handed over to Germany, then it would only be a matter of time before Hitler marched on to Prague. The defense lines of the Czechs were strong and impenetrable. To turn them over to Hitler would be pure suicide. Beneš would never consent. In his words tonight, Hitler had as much as declared war. Even Chamberlain must admit this now! British Treaty obligations would have to be recognized and conciliation abandoned.

  General Beck had resigned his commission after he had explained that the Czech-Sudeten line of defense was too strong to break through without months of fighting. The Führer had scoffed at him and insisted that he would have Beneš served up on a plate the day after invasion.

  Tonight’s speech was more reason then ever why Adolf Hitler would find himself in a cell by Saturday morning. In his cry to rescue the Sudeten-Germans, he was willing to sacrifice thousands of young German soldiers. These were facts that Halder would explain after the coup.

  The tirade against Beneš continued for an hour and a half. By its end, the thousands in the Berlin Sportspalast were in a hysterical frenzy of hatred against the Czechs.

  The conspirators sat beside the radio far into the night as they waited for the opinions of other world leaders to whisper back in answer to the howling. Their jaws set with determination, they strengthened their resolve that Hitler
would not again stand before the microphone and shout his threats.

  ***

  Shimon was grateful when two men came to relieve him at the boiler. Beneath the roaring of the winds, they could not hear his voice and so he nodded and demonstrated the method of loading the fire without spilling hot coals out of the furnace.

  A pat on his back. His replacement mouthed the words: “Get some sleep.”

  Shimon crawled toward the steel ladder leading to the passenger decks. The Darien rolled a full twenty-five degrees to starboard and thirty-degrees to port, sending men toppling over like dominoes. The pumps flailed uselessly as men clung to one another and struggled back to grasp the handles.

  Shimon climbed three steps and then was tossed back, managing to hold on to the handrail with his left hand while the rest of his body twisted around. Aaron grasped Shimon’s leg and pulled himself up with the man’s help. The young man’s hands were bloody and raw from the hours on the pump. His features seemed frozen with the effort, like a runner pushing himself to finish the race.

  Shimon emerged onto the passenger deck and reached back to pull the young man up after him. Together they sprawled on the pitching deck in exhaustion.

  ***

  As Murphy paced the luxurious suite at Hotel Royale, he could feel the eyes of Timmons on him.

  “Ah, Murph.” Timmons scowled. “I don’t know if I want to work for you. I mean . . . it’s been great working with you. I don’t know if I want to ruin our friendship.”

  “I’m not asking you to marry me, Timmons!” Murphy roared. “I want you to go to work for the Trump European operations. I need a journalist in Munich.”

  “But . . . I started as a sports writer.” Timmons thoughtfully probed his ear. “I’m no political reporter. Munich? You want me to cover Chamberlain and Daladier going to bed with Hitler and Mussolini? Huh? Cheating on Beneš in Prague?”

  “Exactly!” Murphy exploded. “You can do it.”

  “No. You can do it.”

  “I can’t do it; that’s the point.” Murphy whirled around and picked up the sheaf of papers with the list of Darien passengers. “I can’t leave now, not until this is settled. I’ve got nearly eight hundred people in my hands.”

  “Yeah, well, when the Big Four get finished with their hanky-panky, we’re going to have a few million more.”

  “I need you to go to Munich for me. Go to work for me on this, Timmons. I can’t give you a raise, but at least you’ll know you’re working for a good, straight-thinking man like Trump instead of Craine.”

  “Or Hearst,” Timmons concluded.

  “This is the biggest story of betrayal since Judas kissed Jesus in Gethsemane. And I can’t leave. What do you say, Timmons?”

  Timmons exhaled. His breath blew his tousled hair like feathers. “Yeah. I guess you’re right. You’re right.” He grimaced. “But you’re the only man I’d go back into Germany for. I’ve come to hate that place, Murphy. Really hate it.”

  Murphy smiled. He was actually pulling together a team. Yesterday he had hired Johnson and sent him to cover Prague. The day before he had lured Phipps away from INS and had pulled together one of the best crews in London.

  “Now all I have to do is get the rest of that million bucks, and we’ve got it made!”

  ***

  Manuel Cabrillo studied Murphy with a doubtful look. “We cannot give you any more time, Señor.”

  “Raising a million dollars takes time. The Darien is still north of Cuba. We can recall her when we get the money. Mr. Trump has personally donated several hundred thousand. There is another account that we have access to. But it is not nearly as much as you are asking for. We could put the money up as a bond, a guarantee—”

  Cabrillo shook his head. “We have offered you our terms,” he said with an air of unconcern. “It is, of course, your responsibility to meet them. Or we simply cannot do business.”

  “We are asking for a few days. That is all.”

  “The government of Cuba is not prepared to extend our deadline.”

  “These are people on this boat—”

  “There are more where they come from, Señor.” Cabrillo smiled sarcastically. “You remind me of my sister. When we were small, a boy in our neighborhood kept snakes. He fed birds to his snakes, and my sister would buy the baby birds from him to keep them from being eaten. He would sell them, of course. She was a fool. The boy always had many more birds to feed his snakes, Señor. The snakes did not care which bird they ate.” He shook his head. “Yes. The Nazis have millions of birds. Why do you wish to save these?” He shrugged. “Why not the others?”

  Snakes and birds. Nazis and Jews. A good comparison. “Because these are the ones I can help . . . maybe. They are on the shores of my homeland. And I don’t want—” He did not finish his thought that America was also full of snakes who would watch with cold eyes as the jaws of Nazi Germany opened wide and swallowed whole . . .

  Cabrillo did not really care. His question had been purely rhetorical, as he must have asked his sister why she bought the baby birds. “I can do nothing more for you, Señor. If you do not have the money, then—” He shrugged. “You should save it up, however. Who knows how many more refugees will sail by your country, no?”

  Was this it, then? Cabrillo was ending the negotiations? “Wait!” Murphy tried again as the little Cuban snatched his hat and moved for the door. “Wait.” He put a hand on the silk suit. He was begging. “Just a few days; we’ll get it.”

  Cabrillo looked at the hand touching his suit. There was scorn in his eyes. “Perhaps another time, Señor. I have a train to catch, then a steamer back to my homeland.”

  And that was the last of it. The end of options. Murphy had already sent feelers out to most of the Latin American countries. Nothing doing. Nobody was in the market for Jews. Nobody wanted Jews. Not even if you paid for them to take one little boatload.

  Cabrillo retreated down the hall as Murphy sank onto the sofa with his head in his hands. What was left? Where could he turn? How could he look at himself in the mirror in the morning when the situation of the Darien grew more desperate each day?

  ***

  The wind was up, hard and strong, as Trump left his Times Square office building. He held on to his hat and squinted up at the four-foot high letters that flashed the news:

  VICTORY FOR DARIEN REFUGEES? . . . STATE DEPARTMENT MAY ISSUE QUOTA NUMBERS FOR 1940 .

  It was only a partial victory, but it was something all the same. Those families onboard the Darien might be allowed into the United States in the quota of 1940. Two years from now. That guarantee might open the door for a temporary refuge somewhere else now that Cuba had refused.

  The chauffeur held open the door of Trump’s automobile as he contemplated the news that now overshadowed everything else.

  CHAMBERLAIN FLIES TO HITLER’S SIDE IN MUNICH . . . BIG FOUR POWERS TO DECIDE FATE OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA . . .

  The last item of the moving lines of news was, for Trump, the most chilling:

  CARIBBEAN HURRICANE MOVES UP COAST TOWARD CAPE HATTERAS . . .

  Since early morning there had been no communication from the wireless of the Darien. At every publishing outpost along the entire Atlantic seaboard, Trump had issued orders that all radio transmissions must be directed toward contacting the ship. There had been no luck.

  Trump shoved his hat down hard on his head and ducked into the car. What would he tell Mrs. Rosenfelt today? She had not spoken since they had returned by plane from Miami. She had not seemed to hear when he told her about the protests and the thousands of letters that had swamped the offices of the secretary of state and President Roosevelt. She had not listened when he told her how the wife of the President had spoken out against the heartlessness of this policy.

  What news could he offer her? Rejoice; your family will be on a quota list for immigration two years from now. Would she not reply that two years was a long time to wait for a woman of seventy-eight?

  He must not
let her know there had been no word from the Darien since last night, that they had been unable to contact the ship which was last reported a hundred miles out and directly in the path of the worst hurricane to hit New England in a hundred years.

  With a sigh, Trump gritted his teeth. He would tell her only the first headline:

  VICTORY FOR DARIEN REFUGEES.

  ***

  Klaus crawled over the bodies of his shipmates toward where he knew Maria and the girls huddled. He had stopped thinking long ago about whom he would save. He had little hope now that anyone would live unless Captain Burton managed somehow to drive the Darien up on land very soon. One of the pumps had broken. The rolling of the ship made repair almost impossible, although a crew of men worked together to do so.

  Klaus had never heard such noise—the wind, wailing like a million souls trapped in hell. A hundred miles an hour, Tucker had guessed. He had never been on seas so rough. But Captain Burton would see them through. He had turned the ship toward land. There would be no Coast Guard out now to stop them.

  Maria reached out for him as he neared their corner. She grasped his soaking shirt. She pulled him against her, and only then did he notice that she was cold. Shivering. Teeth chattering. He laid his head against her, although the ship tried to roll him away.

  “How much longer?” Maria shouted over the howling gale. “How long—the storm?”

  He could not answer. They had survived twenty-eight hours thus far. How much longer could this listing hulk last? And if the Darien did indeed make it to a shoal, how could anyone escape this steel shell? Would the winds not tear them to pieces and the waves break each body on the rocks?