Fire and Steel, Volume 3

by Gerald N. Lund

  “Ja, ja. Very much so.” He hesitated for a moment and then turned a little so that he was directly facing Hans. “Which brings me to the reason I have come to see you, my friend.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. I was given an assignment this morning by my commanding officer, and I hope I can persuade you to help me carry it out.”

  “I . . .” Hans took a quick breath. “I’d love to, Adolf, but I am a working man.”

  “Yes, and you should be proud of that. But this will not interfere with your work, unless you happen to keep the shop open on Sundays.”

  That took Hans aback. “I don’t. Not unless I have an emergency repair.”

  “Gut! Here’s the situation. There is a newly formed political party here in Munich called the Deutsche Arbeiteirpartei. Have you heard of this German Workers’ Party?”

  Both Hans and Emilee shook their heads.

  “Neither had I. They are new and very small. Less than a dozen members on their rolls, I’m told.”

  “A workers’ party?” Hans asked. “Are they Communists, Social­ists? That’s what most of the workers’ parties are.”

  “That was my question exactly,” Adolf answered, “but my commander says they’ve heard that this one is different enough that it warrants looking into. Probably nothing will come of it. Right now new political parties are springing up like toadstools after a heavy rain. But he’s asked me to attend their meeting tomorrow at ten-thirty. I almost told him I would rather not, but then he told me that a man named Feder will be speaking to the group. I was in a class taught by Feder a few weeks back. He is an economist, and he has some electrifying ideas. So I told my commander that I would go just so I could hear him. But I’d like you to come with me, Hans. I’d like your opinion on the group. As I have said before, I like the way you think. I would value a second pair of eyes.”

  It actually sounded intriguing to Hans, and he found Adolf’s company stimulating. He looked at Emilee but then shook his head. “I’d like to, Adolf, but as you can see, Emilee is nearing her time. I don’t want to leave her alone.”

  To his surprise, Emilee was shaking her head before he finished. “Don’t you remember, Hans? Wolfie and Paula invited me to attend church with them and their family tomorrow.” She turned to Adolf. “They’ll be here about nine-thirty, and we won’t be back until after lunch, maybe even longer.”

  “We’ll be finished long before then,” Hitler said, clearly pleased with her response. “So the timing is perfect.”

  Emilee reached out and laid a hand on Hans’s arm. “Go. Just let me know where you’ll be in case anything happens. But I feel fine. I’ll be fine.”

  “The meeting is in the old Sternecker Brewery Building, in south-central Munich. In Schwabing District,” Adolf said. Then, to Hans, “Let’s meet at the main trolley stop in Marienplatz, then we’ll take another trolley down from there. Shall we say ten o’clock?”

  Hans gave Emilee a searching look to see if she was just playing the good wife or if she really meant it. Her look told him it was the latter, so he shrugged and nodded. “All right, then. At the trolley stop, ten tomorrow.”

  Adolf leaped up. “Wunderbar!” He came over to Emilee as she got awkwardly to her feet. “Frau Eckhardt—Emilee—danke a dozen times over. The meal was delicious, the company stimulating, and your hospitality warm and welcoming. Thank you for a most delightful evening.”

  “You are welcome,” she said. “Hans has told me so much about you. I am happy to finally meet you in person.”

  “And I you.” A funny little smile twisted the corners of his mouth. “May I confess something to you, Emilee?”

  “Of course.”

  “Hans asked me earlier if I had eaten yet. I gave him an evasive answer. But to help you appreciate how much your invitation means to me, I shall tell you something that no one else knows.” His eyes were actually twinkling with some merriment. “But you must promise me that you will share this with no one. Not even your husband.”

  Hans started and got up. “I’ll go into the other room.”

  Laughing, Adolf grabbed him by the shoulders. “I’m joking, Hans. Stay.” Then turning back to Emilee, he was sober again. “I am currently housed in the barracks of the Second Infantry Regiment. I have a small room with an army cot, a sink, and a stool. I have several other ‘roommates’ who live with me.”

  “My goodness,” Emilee said. “I thought you said your room was small.”

  “Very small, but these roommates don’t take up much room.” He chuckled, enjoying his little joke. “As is my usual custom, I awoke today at about five in the morning. And my roommates were already awake. They were eating the crumbs from the bread I had eaten the night before.”

  Emilee looked puzzled. Adolf didn’t seem to be making sense.

  “You see,” he went on, “I have four or five little mice who come out in the early hours of the morning and play in my room and share my food with me.”

  “Ew,” Emilee shuddered, “how awful.”

  “Actually, I don’t mind the company. I tell you this only so that you can better appreciate how much this evening meant to me. Good food. Good conversation. Good friends. It was a pleasure indeed.”

  Touched deeply by this unexpected and intimate glimpse into his personal life, Emilee reached out and briefly touched his hand. “Then we must do it again, Adolf. I insist.”

  He stiffened to attention, clicked his heels together sharply, and bowed his head for a moment. “Auf Wiedersehen, Frau Eckhardt.” Then he turned to Hans and extended his hand. “Tomorrow at ten. Danke schön , mein Freund.” Then he turned, retrieved his coat and hat, and went out the door.

  Emilee moved to the window and watched as a moment later Adolf walked out into the street, looked around, pulled his overcoat up around his neck, and disappeared into the night.

  Hans came up beside her. “Well, that was a surprise.”

  “Ja, in more ways than one. You described him before as being quite intense, and I can see why. He is really passionate about things. But I found him quite . . .” She searched for the right word. “Interesting. And engaging.”

  “Yes,” Hans exclaimed. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “You should feel flattered that he values your friendship so highly.”

  “I am, though I am equally puzzled by it. You have to admit, we are not much alike.”

  Emilee slipped an arm through his. “Well, you’re not nearly so handsome as he is, but other than that, I like you better.”

  “What?”

  “I think you should grow a funny little mustache like he wears.”

  “You like his mustache?”

  “Actually, I don’t. It looks like someone stuck a patch of black carpet above his upper lip. But you definitely need something to improve your looks.”

  She squealed as he swung around, his hands coming up to grab her.

  “No, Hans,” she cried. “Remember the baby. I’m in a delicate condition. You can’t lay a hand on me.”

  Chapter Notes

  Hitler’s decision to go into politics was made after a fiery Lutheran pastor came to the military hospital in Pasewalk the day after the Armistice was announced. The pastor gave a passionate call for action to stop the “November criminals” from destroying their nation. Hitler described his reaction to the pastor’s words as a “fever of excitement” and then wrote: “It was impossible for me to stay and listen any longer. Darkness surrounded me as I staggered and stumbled back to my ward and buried my aching head between the blankets and pillow. I had not cried since the day I stood beside my mother’s grave, . . . [but now] I broke down completely. . . . The following days were terrible to bear, and the nights still worse. . . . My own fate became clear to me. . . . For my part I then decided that I would take up political work” (Mein Kampf, 94–95).

  When he returned
to Munich, he was given the assignment to investigate the German Workers’ Party in the fall of 1919. That seemingly insignificant request would prove to be one of those tiny events that later have a profound effect on the course of history (see William L. Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, 32–35).

  Hitler’s account of feeding mice in his barracks comes from his autobiography (see Mein Kampf, 100).

  October 19, 1919, 9:28 a.m.—Trolley stop, Marienplatz, Old Town, Munich

  Before the trolley even came to a stop, Hans saw the dark figure pacing back and forth along the sidewalk. The sky was low and a dark grey, and it was cold enough that they might see snow tonight. Seeing the trolley coming, Adolf immediately started across the plaza toward it. He reached it as the carriage came to a stop.

  “Guten Morgen,” Hans said as he stepped off the car and stuck out his hand.

  “Guten Morgen.” There was a brief smile and a quick, somewhat unenthusiastic handshake. It seemed that Adolf’s mind was somewhere else. As usual.

  As the trolley rattled away, Adolf inclined his head to the left and started toward a side street. “This way,” he said, and not waiting to see if Hans was following, he started off.

  Hans smiled. One of the things he most admired about Adolf was the quickness of his mind and his ability to focus intently on whatever he was thinking about. It was also one of his oddities. Hans half trotted a few steps and fell in beside him.

  “I wish to tell you about Gottfried Feder,” Adolf began, with no preliminary warm-ups.

  “Okay. You said that he’s an economist. Just so you know, economics was not one of my better subjects at the academy.”

  Adolf brushed that aside with a flick of his hand. “Actually, Herr Doctor Feder is a construction engineer. Economics is only a hobby. But you would do well to study up on the subject, for economics is inextricably linked with history and politics, and you must understand economics to better understand the other two.”

  Hans grunted something he hoped sounded like assent, but he had no interest in learning economics.

  “The title of his lecture today is ‘The Abolition of Interest or Speculative Capital.’”

  “‘Interest capital’? I don’t think I’ve heard that term before. What is it?”

  It was the wrong question. Adolf immediately launched into a thorough explanation of the difference between capital that is created directly by the labor of individuals, such as a farmer who grows crops and sells them to the people, and capital created through investments in stocks and bonds or through charging interest on money loaned by banks and investment companies.

  Hans tried to pay enough attention to murmur brief responses from time to time or occasionally ask what he hoped was an intelligent question. Fortunately, Adolf had launched into his teaching mode and didn’t seem to notice that his pupil was having trouble keeping up. Hans was grateful when, ten minutes later, Adolf suddenly looked up, slowed his step, and said, “Oh, there’s the Sternecker Brewery up ahead of us. We’ll have to continue this later.”

  “Thanks,” Hans said, managing to look disappointed. “That should help me as I listen to . . . what was his name again?”

  “Feder. Gottfried Feder.” Adolf slapped him on the arm. “Come. We want to be sure to get a seat.”

  When Hans shot him a strange look, Adolf hooted aloud. “Yes, yes. There shall be more than enough seats, even if the room only holds two dozen people. I’m joking, Hans. You must not take me so seriously all the time. Come. Let’s you and I go in and double their numbers.”

  This time Hans did laugh.

  11:22 a.m.—Old Sternecker Brewery, Schwabing, Munich

  Ten minutes into Gottfried Feder’s lecture, whatever Hans had picked up from Adolf was lost in a blizzard of esoteric facts and figures delivered in a nasal voice in a complete monotone with no apparent organization to his thoughts. Twenty minutes in and Hans was fighting hard to stay awake. And he wasn’t the only one. In fact, Feder seemed to be the last man in the room who found what he was saying interesting. Even Hitler seemed far away. As it turned out, Feder was giving the same talk that he had given in the class Adolf had attended, so he quickly lost interest.

  Knowing that Adolf would likely question him about the lecture on the way back to the trolley stop, Hans gave Feder about ten percent of his attention. The rest of it he used to assess the very unimpressive German Workers’ Party. He and Hitler had been too pessimistic. There were about two dozen people present, including Hans and Adolf and several other first-time attendees. They all had been welcomed with great enthusiasm by the party’s president, a man named Harrer. He had begun the meeting by trying to get them enrolled on the books. Hans had to laugh. Maybe Harrer knew what kind of speaker Feder would be. One of the party members had inadvertently let slip that at present there were only six actual card-carrying members, which probably also explained the enrollment pitch.

  Their meeting place was in a small restaurant in the cellar of the brewery. The room they were in served both as a private room for small groups of diners and a storage room for large barrels of beer. The restaurant had offered the group free pretzels and peanuts as long as they kept ordering steins of beer.

  The group did fit the title of a workers’ party. They were all obviously laborers of various kinds, judging from their clothing, their callused hands, and their dirty fingernails. Hans was glad that he had decided to wear his coveralls and work boots in spite of Emilee’s suggestion that he wear something a little more “appropriate.” Herr Feder and Adolf were the only ones dressed differently. Feder wore a suit, vest, and tie. Adolf was in his army dress uniform.

  Adolf had been disgusted by the group and probably would have turned around and left if he hadn’t been on assignment from the army. It was more like a primary school reading group. They had confirmed that almost from the first moment. Herr Harrer was introduced as the Party’s “national president.” Only six members, but one of them is the national president? Pretty grandiose organization, Hans thought.

  After a brief welcome to those who were new, Harrer apologized to those who were members, explaining that since they had only seven marks in the treasury, there were not yet sufficient funds to print their membership cards. He then pled for the members to pay their dues and for their guests to contribute whatever they could afford.

  Hans felt a jab on his shoulder. “What did you think?” Adolf asked.

  Startled, Hans realized that Herr Feder was gathering up his notes and preparing to sit down. He glanced at the clock. Thank heavens. They had been there just over an hour now. “Uh . . . some of it was over my head. Maybe you can go over the basics again.” Inwardly he winced, hoping that Adolf wouldn’t remember that on the way back to the trolley stop.

  “Well, I’m bored to tears,” Adolf whispered. “Let’s get out of here.”

  But as he began to stand, the president stood and rapped the table for attention. “We’d like to thank Herr Doctor Feder for sharing his economic theories with us tonight. They were very . . . uh . . . thought-provoking.” But what he said next made both Hans and Adolf groan. “The time is now open for questions or discussion.”

  As he and Adolf sank back into their seats, Hans leaned over and jabbed Adolf with his elbow. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a beer?” he whispered. “I don’t think tea is going to be enough to keep you awake.”

  Before Adolf could answer, the man who had raised his hand got to his feet. He was a younger man, near Hans’s age. Though he wore working clothes, he didn’t strike Hans as a laborer, though he wasn’t sure why. “I should like to challenge the doctor’s primary points,” he said with a sneer. “I am a student of economics, but I have never heard of the concept of interest capital.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Hans saw Adolf’s head come up slowly. His eyes narrowed as he scowled at the man. “If I may,” the man said with an unmistakable air of co
ndescension, “I would like to answer the Herr Doctor’s ‘theories’”—he pronounced the word with contempt—“point by point.”

  And as he began, Hans saw Adolf come fully alert and start to fume.

  12:25 p.m.—Near Marienplatz, Munich

  As the trolley from Schwabing entered the central area of the city, Hans glanced at Adolf out of the corner of one eye. He was still gazing out the window, lost in his thoughts. Fearing that the topic of interest capitalism might come up again, Hans had been careful not to interrupt Adolf’s contemplations, which had now lasted for more than twenty minutes. Now, with Marienplatz visible about two blocks ahead of them, he decided to speak.

  “Um . . . Adolf?”

  His companion looked up.

  “I’ve been thinking. The church that Emilee is attending this morning is only about a mile or so from the trolley stop. And they should be about done. I think I’ll walk over and wait for her, make sure she’s doing all right.”

  “Oh.” That was followed by a curt nod. “All right. Are you leaving me now?”

  “No, not until the trolley stop, but then I’ll head off in another direction.”

  “Gut. Tell me what you thought.”

  “Uh . . . well, I must admit that Feder’s lecture didn’t help me much on the subject of—”

  “No, no. I don’t care about that.”

  “Do you mean what did I think of that young guy who—?”

  There was a bark of genuine disgust. “That insolent pup! It didn’t take much to put him in his place.”

  Hans chuckled. “You made mincemeat of him. And bravo for it. He was pretty arrogant.”

  “No, I’m talking about the Workers’ Party. What are your impressions?”

  “Oh. Well, to be honest, I have to say that I was tremendously unimpressed. Seven marks in their treasury. Can’t even afford to print membership cards for six members. Boring meetings. I’ll bet you five marks they never make it to thirty members.”