Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  Next to turn up was the short, broad-shouldered figure of the Party photographer, Hoffmann. Hoffmann enthused over her warmly. As ever, it was impossible to resist his florid-faced bonhomous charm.

  There were also two secretaries from the Berlin Chancellery, who Ello had never seen before. Hitler did not introduce them to her.

  All these people, too, presented birthday gifts. Hoffmann’s was an original, with negative, of one of his studio studies of Hitler. It showed his face only, boldly full-face, close-up, strikingly rearing out of a black background. Underneath, in stark white lettering, floated a single word – HITLER.

  As ever with the Nazis, it was not an original idea. Ello was sure she had seen a face-only study of Hindenburg somewhere – with just one word under it. But it was stunningly powerful – just about the most effective photograph she had ever seen. She was pretty sure it had been used as a poster by the Nazi Party in one of the elections, last year.

  The Hesses were now presenting their gift – a piece of Allach porcelain. It was specially commissioned, Hess informed his Führer, from the factory, up near Dachau. The Allach company had recently opened a branch in the camp itself, using captive labour. As Ello knew, they had already complained that outbreaks of typhoid among the prisoners were affecting production.

  Hitler tore the wrapping paper from his gift, pouting the while. To gasps of appreciation from the onlookers, a panting porcelain Alsatian was revealed, modelled on Hitler’s dog, Muck. It was, in Ello’s view, the epitome of kitsch.

  Anni had somehow summoned her husband, without appearing to move, to clear away wrapping paper initially, and finally the presents themselves, except Ziegler’s offering.

  Using the distraction, Ello rose with willowy grace, no mean feat from the low wide armchair, and with a murmur of excuse left the lounge. Hitler, his mind still on his gifts, hardly noticed her go.

  She made her way out of the door, along the hall, past the library on her right, past the cloakroom, toward the kitchen. As she went, she thought of Rudi. She had told him she was away, visiting a girlfriend. The last time she had been in Hitler’s company, he had been frantic with concern for her. It was weeks before he had simmered down and stopped twitching.

  The kitchen was at the far end of the second floor, served by a staff stairway and external entrance. As Ello had hoped, the presiding cook was Therese Linke. She had been drafted in from Haus Wachenfeld, Hitler’s country residence in the Bavarian Alps, to deal with the extra work in Munich, now that he was Chancellor. Frau Linke had known her since girlhood; she used to pat her on the head and call her Mäuschen – little mouse.

  Now grey and much stouter, Linke was presiding over the loading of Hitler’s tray. Hitler had a dish of poached eggs and creamed potatoes. Everybody else at luncheon was being served white sausages and sauerkraut, except Hess, whose spinach was being handwashed in mineral water by one of his own cooks.

  ‘Frau Linke!’

  For a second, the cook was annoyed at having her concentration broken, but only for a second: ‘Fräulein Ello! I didn’t recognise you! How long is it now? Oh, what a lovely young woman you have become!’

  Ello smiled. ‘Thank you, Frau Linke. I just came to say hello. But I can see how busy you are. May I take up the Führer’s tray?’

  Therese Linke’s eyes widened at the request. Anni Winter would never have allowed this breach of protocol. And indeed Ello would not have tried it, if she hadn’t known Anni was safely ensconced in the lounge. Ello waited, as two younger women cooks covered the food with silver chafing dishes to keep it warm, before its journey to the dining room.

  As she expected, Frau Linke’s surprise eventually turned to understanding. This happened slowly; the cook was not given to rapid thought. She saw that Ello wished to serve the Führer, in this most literal and feminine of ways, by bringing his food. She was delighted.

  She took Hitler’s tray and gave it to Ello. ‘There, Fräulein Ello, and now if you’ll excuse me ...’

  ‘Of course, Frau Linke.’

  Outside in the corridor, carrying the tray, Ello whimpered in frustration. The drink accompanying his meal was Fachinger mineral water. She should have known that, from the Wednesday lunches at the Ostaria. The gelatine round the atropine capsules would take minutes to dissolve in the cold water. Meanwhile, it would be clearly visible.

  She had made a stupid mistake in not bringing the poison in powder form, in a twist of paper. If she had, Hitler would have been dead in hours. She considered trying to break one of the capsules, but rejected the idea. She might be seen, and anyway, the only way to break it would be to use her teeth. Suppose she swallowed some? The hallucinations accompanying mild atropine poisoning did not appeal.

  The other guests were just taking their places in the dining room. There was a low hum of conversation, led by Hoffmann, who appeared drunk already. They all knew Hitler well enough not to wait for him to give a conversational lead.

  Ello laid the tray on the edge of the table and served Hitler the first course of his luncheon, and his drink. His elaborate Viennese sweet would be brought up later. He beamed at her, as she took the place left empty at his right hand. She made up her mind to wait for the coffee at the end of the meal. The capsules dissolved in coffee almost instantly, she had tried it.

  Georg Winter appeared again, bringing food. Hoffmann, purple in the face, was boomingly telling a string of the Dachau jokes currently doing the rounds. Ziegler was smoothly paying court to the prettier of the two secretaries, with an occasional glance across at Ello.

  Hess stared bug-eyed at Hitler, while mechanically munching food without tasting it. Hess had married poor plain Ilse Pröhl, now tucking into her sausages with gusto as Frau Hess, at Hitler’s command. And then he had ordered the honeymoon postponed, so the long-suffering Ilse could chaperone Geli. Hess was a brilliant man – he had written all the difficult bits of Mein Kampf, in Landsberg. So why did he subsume himself in Hitler? What did he see in him? What did anybody see in him? Ello felt a wave of despair.

  Hitler scoffed his sweet, then suddenly broke his self-imposed silence to hold forth on the subject of art. Perhaps he feared some of the ateliers they were to visit that afternoon would contain Expressionist or Cubist paintings. At any rate, a diatribe burst out of him, without warning or apparent prompting. Naturally, it was listened to in reverential silence by everybody around the table, although for reasons unclear to Ello, it was directed entirely at Hoffmann.

  Hitler’s unwavering gaze honed in on the photographer, ignoring everybody else. He chopped the air with his right forearm as he spoke:

  ‘Art serves a social purpose, Hoffmann. It draws a true picture of life. It is clear and simple, in style and subject. It is healthy and beautiful. Solid and decent.’ His voice was rising as he spoke. ‘It is German,’ he insisted, making an especially vigorous downward motion. ‘And not international. Like the works of Böcklin. Like the works of von Schwind. Do you know the painting A Symphony, by Moritz von Schwind?’

  ‘Er ...’

  Ello smothered a giggle. This was one of Hitler’s oft-repeated monologues. Another was how a premonition had helped him survive a gas attack in the war. The inner workings of his Selve car, the first he had ever had, was a third. At Haus Wachenfeld, the insomniac Hitler would summon Hoffmann or Hess or Bormann to hear these same stories over and over again, late at night, until they fell asleep – which Hitler fortunately took no offence at.

  Without further ado, the Führer launched into his umpteenth exposition of von Schwind’s painting. Everybody round the table had stopped eating.

  ‘It was painted in 1852,’ Hitler began. ‘Oil on canvas. It measures 168.8 by 100 centimetres. It shows an orchestra playing a symphony to the court. But everything in the painting has a purpose. You see, Hoffmann?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘The parts of the picture represent the parts of the symphony: andante, scherzo, allegro and so on. Not only do we know which symphony they are
playing – Beethoven, Fantasie für Klavier, Orchester und Chor – you can even see which part of it they are playing. You can see which notes.’

  Hitler made chopping motions to emphasise his point. ‘And we know who we are looking at. It is quite clear. In the choir we see Hofrat Spaun, in profile. Next to him, the singer Vogel, from Vienna. Then Franz Schubert and Franz Grillparzer. We know who the conductor is. We can see who the conductor is. He is recognisable as himself. He is Kapellmeister Franz Lachner. Clear and unmistakeable. He could be nobody else. In the wings, Maximiliana von Blittersdorf. The music was dedicated to her. How do we know it is Maximiliana von Blittersdorf, Hoffmann? Because it looks like Maximiliana von Blittersdorf. Hair, skin, eyes. It is Maximiliana von Blittersdorf, represented in paint. To be German, Hoffmann, is to be clear!’

  There were vigorous nods and murmurs of agreement round the table – Jawohl! Sicher! Richtig! Only the Berlin secretaries looked down shyly at the napery – feeling a little out of their depth. When coffee came, Ello put her hand in her pocket, cradling the capsules. But Ziegler had grown bored with the prettier secretary and never took his eyes off her.

  She hoped for another opportunity that afternoon.

  Chapter Five

  To her surprise, Ello travelled in the lead Mercedes, with Hider – acknowledged as his companion, at least among his intimates. Hitler shyly took her hand as they drove along, like an adolescent on his first date. But she was far more aware of the brooding presence of Schreck, at the wheel.

  They drove to Paul Roloff’s atelier in Odeonsplatz. As the second Mercedes disgorged Hoffmann, and then Herr and Frau Hess and Ziegler, Hitler’s party were met on the pavement outside the atelier by Karl Caspar and his wife, Maria.

  Karl Caspar was a Professor at the Munich Academy, mainly known for his altarpiece at Munich’s Church of Our Lady. His work was being criticised by the Nazis. The Völkischer Beobachter had just devoted a full page to attacking him, describing his paintings as ‘looking as if he had painted them with his elbows dipped in paint’. The Caspars had apparently been appointed as guides for the afternoon’s tour of the ateliers.

  Karl Caspar was a tiny man, a head shorter than his wife. He had a full beard, round glasses and a tight, turned-down mouth. He looked more like a passed-over bank-clerk than a professor of art. The wife, Maria Caspar-Filser – also a painter – looked tense and fearful at his side. She bobbed a curtsey to Hitler, who gave the couple a curt nod. Ziegler and Hoffmann treated them with disdain – a bad sign. The Hesses appeared not to have seen them at all.

  Up in the atelier, the artist Paul Roloff turned out to be young, skinny and painfully eager to please. His work was largely in the Old Master style. Hitler stopped in front of a portrait in oils of the architect Paul-Ludwig Troost.

  Troost had converted the ancient Barlow Palace into the Brown House, following design sketches Hitler had scribbled on the back of menus at the Café Heck. Ello knew him well, from the soirées at her family’s home. His wife, Gerdy, had designed the uncomfortable armchairs and the rest of the furniture at Hitler’s apartment.

  Roloff’s portrait showed the bespectacled Troost full-length in a white coat, carrying a pencil, with an architectural model visible at a window to his right. Interestingly, to Ello at any rate, Troost was posed standing with his clenched left hand on his hip, elbow bent outwards. She had never once seen him stand like that – but the rather effeminate posture was characteristic of Hitler.

  Hitler flapped a hand at Hess, who trotted to his side. ‘This one,’ he said, giving a jerky nod at the portrait of Troost. Hess nodded and spoke to the artist. A price would be fixed later. Hess would make all the arrangements.

  Eventually, the Führer and his entourage decamped downstairs, and spilled onto the pavement. There was no question of the partially discredited Caspars travelling with the Führer, but nobody had given any thought as to how they were to get to the next atelier, as there was not enough room for them in the second car.

  After some discussion, Hoffmann gave up his place; Hess radioed for a car to take him home. The Caspars squeezed into the second Mercedes, next to a disdainful Ziegler and Herr Hess, with Frau Hess perched primly on the jump seat.

  *

  The next stop was at the studio of the sculptor Ferdinand Liebermann – an official studio, paid for out of government funds. Because it was the atelier of a sculptor, it was massive, with a ceiling of skylights over twenty feet high. Hitler greeted Liebermann with a warm, self-consciously firm handshake.

  Liebermann had made the bust of Geli, after her death; the one placed in the mausoleum that Geli’s room had become. The sculptor had now created a bronze of Hitler, as a pendant companion-piece to the Geli bust.

  As the group gathered round it, Liebermann, a portly figure who smoked incessantly, removed its covering cloth like a magician doing a party trick. In three-quarter profile, the Führer in bronze looked thoughtful, slightly frowning and, Ello thought, considerably more intelligent than he was. Geli, who had seen through her uncle around the time she went to university, would have laughed her head off at it.

  ‘Excellent,’ Hess murmured, giving voice to what he knew Hitler’s reaction to be. For a second, Ello had an insane vision of Hitler actually pulling a string to make Hess speak. Ilse Hess nodded in silent support of Hitler, via her husband.

  Hitler, too, was nodding to himself. ‘Good work, Liebermann.’ There was no need to tell Hess to arrange the purchase, it was understood.

  Ello had hoped that refreshment would be offered at the ateliers, into which she could slip enough atropine to kill Hitler. But this was proving wide of the mark. It was so frustrating.

  *

  The next atelier was Max Rauh’s, up near the university. Here, the atmosphere was very different to that in Liebermann’s studio. Ziegler, Karl Caspar and Rauh were all colleagues at the Munich Academy, all of the same generation. But their situations under the Third Reich could not have been more different:

  Ziegler, Hitler’s pet artist – creator of the new dead style – was in receipt of commissions directly from the Führer. Karl Caspar was a suspect figure. Rauh’s position was somewhere between the two, though nearer to Karl Caspar’s. In the public debate about art currently raging in Munich, the Nazis had praised some of Rauh’s work – notably an autumn landscape. But when Hitler stopped in front of another of Rauh’s paintings, there was a thickening silence in the atelier.

  Ello wondered what Gerhard Glaser would have made of Rauh’s St Antony. Her interest in art had deepened since her friendship with Glaser. She had asked him to take her to the Neue Pinakothek, and explain the paintings. The trip had not yet materialised, though Ello resolved to keep asking until it did.

  Rauh had painted St Antony in a monk’s cowl, holding a child. Both the forms and the colours were representational. Ello frowned, trying to master the new subject by sheer effort of will. The Nazis demanded a photographic norm in form and colour. They wanted a subject matter that celebrated some aspect of the Racial Community, usually what was commonly known as Blu-Bo – Blut und Boden – the mystical union of Blood and Soil.

  Blond peasants tilling the soil with horses or oxen fitted the bill nicely, as did families of blond peasants eating, or blonde Germanic motherhood – preferably full-breasted. Brooding romantic German or Italian mountains in gloomy weather were also de rigueur – perhaps with a blasted tree. Seascapes in bad weather, like Ziegler’s gift to Hitler of Burning Sea by Capri, were a permitted occasional variant.

  Rauh’s St Antony was a religious subject, which was bad, but not necessarily enough on its own to damn the artist. Nevertheless, Ello sensed that Rauh was doomed. The child the saint was holding was the main problem. There was something eldritch about him, reminiscent of the eerie children of Otto Dix – something otherworldly, something atypical. The saint himself looked, well, actually a bit Jewish – much as Christ must have looked. Ello suppressed a giggle.

  Hitler’s face had turned thunderou
s. ‘This won’t do,’ he said and stalked towards the stairs of the atelier. Taking his cue from Hitler, Ziegler nodded curtly at his colleague and said, ‘We’ll speak about this later, Rauh.’ He followed his Führer toward the exit.

  Karl Caspar was still standing, as if petrified, in front of Rauh’s offending picture. He spread his hands helplessly, half-turning to Rauh in a timid gesture of support. At his side, Maria Kaspar-Filser was ivory-pale. She was a plain woman with hair scraped back off her face. Her mouth was working silently now, as if trying to make enough saliva to swallow. She knew what was next on the agenda. The visit to the atelier she shared with her husband.

  *

  The Caspars had a light, north-facing studio not far from the Neue Pinakothek. As they all filed in, Ello shot Maria Caspar-Filser a look of support, and gave her arm a brief squeeze.

  Hitler and the entourage stopped in front of one of her pieces, entitled Harvesting the Fruit. The workers’ joy at their labour in the sun had been conveyed by a blurring of colour and form; blending them into the landscape, making them one with it, after the style of August Macke. A clever composition showed a ladder against a tree, with another diagonal formed by a woman holding a basket aloft, all pointing the way to heaven. It was a celebration of fructitude – a celebration of life itself. Hitler glared at the hapless artist, who was close to tears.

  At the far end of the atelier was Karl Caspar’s Easter. Christ rose from a coffin, arms aloft and looked about to leap out at the viewer. His expression gave boundless love. Ello, who was not remotely religious, gasped at its audacious beauty. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  ‘Men who are like wild beasts,’ Hitler muttered to himself, ‘children who, were they alive, must be regarded as the cursed of God.’ Ello understood the reference to children to hark back to the Rauh painting.

  The Caspars stood together in front of Karl’s work. The little clerk-like figure drew himself up to his full height. ‘Excellency,’ he said, ‘you don’t understand anything about this.’