Paving the New Road
Page 36
Rowland Sinclair maintained a correspondence with both Albert Göring and Egon Kisch. The arm broken by Ernst Röhm healed surprisingly well, though he bore the Nazi symbol burned into his chest for the rest of his life. For the first time, the determinedly disinterested Rowland Sinclair began to take an active interest in international politics.
In 1934, Egon Kisch boarded the Strathaird to visit Australia as a delegate to an anti-fascist conference. Refused entry by the Lyons Government, he jumped from the ship onto the quayside at Melbourne, breaking his leg in the process. On 17th February 1935, Egon Kisch addressed a crowd of 18,000 in Sydney’s Domain, where he spoke passionately about the evils of the Nazi regime, the danger of another war and of concentration camps. He was welcomed warmly at Rowland Sinclair’s Woodlands House.
After escaping Dachau and Germany, Hans Beimler joined the first contingent of International Brigades volunteers as a commissar, defending Madrid from the Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. He was killed in battle in 1936 and was buried in Barcelona.
Albert Göring continued to oppose the Nazi Government, using his brother’s position to help many dissidents escape Germany. During the war he only increased his anti-Nazi activity, encouraging minor acts of sabotage, and forging his brother’s signature on documents when necessary. By 1944 a death warrant demanding execution on sight was issued for Albert. Hermann, as always, dropped everything to save him, asking Himmler personally to smooth over the matter. The Göring brothers met for the last time in 1945. Hermann was the Allies’ most prized Nazi prisoner, while it seemed Albert was detained simply for being Hermann Göring’s brother. In 1946, Hermann committed suicide shortly before he was due to be hanged, and Albert was freed.
Nancy Wake interviewed Adolf Hitler in 1933. Having witnessed the ruthless treatment of the Jews in Germany, she returned to Paris adamant that she would do whatever she could to fight the Nazis.
Adolf Hitler eventually noticed the young, black-shirted Englishwoman who seemed to be at the Osteria Bavaria every time he visited the restaurant. He invited Unity Mitford to his table and came to consider her the perfect example of Nordic womanhood.
In October 1933, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith flew solo from London to Wyndham, Western Australia, in just over seven days. The feat brightened his flagging prospects following the bankruptcy of Australian National Airlines, which he had jointly established with Charles Ulm. The celebrated airman opened a flying training school—the Kingsford Smith Air Service—in Sydney. Rowland Sinclair was among his first students.
The authorities never officially connected Eva Braun with either Robert Negus or Rowland Sinclair. She acquired another Scottish terrier to keep her beloved Stasi company, naming this second hound Negus. Eva remained loyal to her Herr Wolf, though the relationship continued to cause her much heartache. She attempted to take her own life again in 1934, and then in 1945, just one day after she’d married the object of her obsession, and become Mrs. Adolf Hitler. This third suicide attempt was successful.
In the absence of competition from Alois Richter, Hugo Boss became the primary supplier of uniforms to the Reich.
Senator Charles Hardy took shipment from Germany of several objects d’art in the later months of 1933. Backwards Mona Lisa by Hans von Eidelsöhn ended up hanging in a shearing shed near Yass, where it was said to have had a calming effect on penned sheep. Two other works by von Eidelsöhn form part of the Australian Club’s private collection. Joán Miró’s deformed duck painting, otherwise known as Paysage, passed through many hands before it was eventually acquired by the National Gallery of Australia in 1983. There is no record of what became of the pile of old hats or the empty pail titled Drought.
In 1937, the Nazis mounted an exhibition of “Degenerate Art” in Munich, consisting of Modernist works hung chaotically beside deriding labels. Positioned between a Van Gogh and a Picasso, under the slogan “madness becomes method,” was the painting of a blue nude by a little known artist called Robert Negus. The accompanying label stated that the work was displayed as an example of art by the criminally insane.
Delighted with what he believed a successful tour, Eric Campbell was lavish in his praise of the fascist regimes of Europe. His return to the New Guard was marked with an increased autocracy during which he attempted to instigate the heel-clicking salute of the fascists, and a uniform. Campbell entertained an increasingly familiar association with Nazi representatives in Australia.
In 1934, Briton Press published The New Road by Eric Campbell, an argument for what the writer called a “corporate state” in which, he contended, that “the spiritual and moral inspiration of Fascism is the Hope of Civilisation,” and condemned the press for censuring “either Italy or Germany for asserting their rights by force against the continued misgovernment of the sectional minorities.”
In December 1933, Eric Campbell launched a formal political party, the Centre Party, to contest all State and Commonwealth elections. Despite his sycophantic praise of the German Government, there remained no public show of friendship or endorsement from the Nazi Regime, other than an autographed photograph of Adolf Hitler, procured through the German Consul-General. Unlike Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party, the Centre Party failed to gain popular support and the rise of Eric Campbell was curtailed. The “New Road” was not taken. It seemed Australians preferred the well-worn route of democracy.
About Sulari Gentill
A reformed lawyer, Sulari Gentill is the author of the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries, eight historical crime novels (thus far) chronicling the life and adventures of her 1930s Australian gentleman artist; the Hero Trilogy, based on the myths and epics of the ancient world; and a standalone mystery called Crossing the Lines. She lives with her husband, Michael, and their boys, Edmund and Atticus, on a small farm in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains in Australia, where she grows French black truffles and writes.
Sulari has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize—Best First Book, won the 2012 Davitt Award for Crime Fiction, been shortlisted in 2013 and the 2015 Davitt Award, the 2015 Ned Kelly Award, the 2015 and 2016 Australian Book In-dustry Award for Best Adult Book, the NSW Genre Fiction Award, commended in the FAW Jim Hamilton Award and offered a Varuna Fellowship. She was the inaugural Eminent Writer in Residence at the Museum of Australian Democracy.
She remains in love with art of writing.
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