2. ‘“Put a tenner on Bogskar for us, will you?” he said …’
A good bet, as Bogskar went on to win the Grand National the next year. However, he was an unexpected winner, with long odds of twenty-five to one, so perhaps the tall man simply knew something the bookies didn’t.
3. ‘I was sunk in melancholy thoughts. Architecture affects me that way …’
Though Wolf aspired to become an artist, he was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, with the recommendation that he study architecture instead. Wolf, however, lacked the necessary academic credentials. He also lacked the money, and for a time lived in a homeless shelter, before settling in the men’s dormitory on Meldemannstrasse 27.
Chapter 7
1. ‘his conversation on the World Ice Theory, the Welteislehre, has always been fascinating and erudite …’
Also known as Glazial-Kosmogonie (Glacial Cosmology), the idea came to the Austrian engineer Hans Hörbiger in a dream in 1894. It suggested bodies in the universe were composed primarily of ice, and was adopted by National Socialism as an antidote to ‘Jewish science’, such as the theory of relativity.
2. ‘I had been paid three hundred and fifty pounds from my British publisher, Hurst & Blackett. …’
My Struggle. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1933. By 1939 the small firm had been subsumed by the larger publishing firm, Hutchinson.
3. ‘It was the second time in a week that a Rubinstein was holding Wolf by the balls …’
Various sources have claimed over the years that Wolf was in possession of only one testicle; but that has never been conclusively confirmed.
Chapter 8
1. ‘That big fat oaf, Gil Chesterton …’
G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936), was indeed a large man – he was over six feet in height and weighed some 21 stone. He converted to Catholicism later in life, and is best known as the author of the Father Brown detective stories.
2. ‘The Zionist Congress sent an expedition to British East Africa … Unfortunately the expedition did not return a favourable report …’
For further details see Report on the work of the commission sent out to examine the territory offered by H.M. Government to the Zionist Organisation for the purposes of a Jewish settlement in British East Africa (London: Wertheimer, Lea & Co, 1905).
3. ‘We have no names. We have no parents and we have no children …’
Ka-Tzetnik’s testimony during the Eichmann Trial in 1961 lasted just 2:50 minutes before his collapse. He did not resume the witness stand. He said:
‘It was not a pen name. I do not regard myself as a writer and a composer of literary material. This is a chronicle of the planet of Auschwitz. I was there for about two years. Time there was not like it is here on earth. Every fraction of a minute there passed on a different scale of time. And the inhabitants of this planet had no names, they had no parents nor did they have children. There they did not dress in the way we dress here; they were not born there and they did not give birth; they breathed according to different laws of nature; they did not live – nor did they die – according to the laws of this world. They were human skeletons, and their name was the number “Ka-Tzetnik”.’
Chapter 9
1. ‘He had a long mournful lawyer’s face and a lawyer’s fidgety manners …’
Roland Freisler (1893–1945) Nazi lawyer and judge. An officer in the First World War, he joined the Nazi party in 1925 and indeed, as Wolf notes, served as defence counsel for Nazi party members.
2. ‘Murder is a frustration not just of the individual: it is a frustration of the race …’
Wolf is, perhaps unconsciously, echoing Raymond Chandler again here, in an essay (‘The Simple Art of Murder’) written some time after the events depicted here.
3. ‘I am working on a case that may be related. I need access to … a part of the Jewish community …’
It is not clear, in view of later events, what Wolf was planning. Perhaps he was hoping to use Isabella Rubinstein’s wealth and social influence, such as they were, to try to gain access again to the Palestinian networks, thus working the Mosley case. But he does not, unfortunately, record here the details of his plan.
4. ‘You want me to work with you? Solving … crime? Like Nick and Nora Charles!’
Nick and Nora Charles were a mystery-solving husband and wife team in Dashiell Hammett’s 1934 novel The Thin Man, and in a subsequent series of films.
5. ‘Albert Curtis Brown was my literary agent …’
Albert Curtis Brown (1866–1945) was indeed Wolf’s literary agent in the UK, having taken on representation of My Struggle from Wolf’s German publishers, for the English-language market. He founded Curtis Brown Ltd in 1899, representing Steinbeck, Faulkner and Mailer, amongst others, and growing the agency into one of the largest in the UK.
Chapter 10
1. ‘Leni? Leni Riefenstahl? My God!’ Wolf said …’
Leni Riefenstahl (1902–2003), German actress and film director. She was a committed National Socialist; Wolf had always been an ardent fan of hers, and the attraction was mutual.
2. ‘It wasn’t even a personal rejection!’
Stanley Unwin indeed received a copy of Wolf’s book – but turned it down – around 1926. Wolf obviously bore a grudge.
3. ‘The foul man had tricked me!’
Professor Edmund Robert Forster (1878–1933) was much as Wolf describes him here. A Berlin neurologist and decorated war medic, Forster was put in command of the Pasewalk hospital, in charge of treating soldiers from the front diagnosed with being hysterics – what we would probably now call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He had little patience for the soldiers in general, seeing them as ‘shirkers’ from their duty. Treatment for such ‘hysterics’ sometimes included electric shocks and total isolation. Forster confined himself to a harsh, almost bullying attitude to his patients – an attitude which often worked. He treated Wolf during October–November 1918, successfully restoring the young soldier’s vision with the method Wolf indeed mentions above – as unorthodox as it may seem.
Chapter 11
1. ‘It was in the plain yellow dustjacket, like the books published by that Jew, Victor Gollancz …’
Victor Gollancz (1893–1967) was a British publisher and well-known socialist. He was born to an orthodox Jewish family in North London. In 1927, he founded Victor Gollancz Ltd, publishing works by George Orwell amongst many others. The yellow jackets were a distinctive brand choice for the imprint, which had existed for many years. It is quite possible Wolf’s publishers had simply copied the design. The imprint continues to this day, though mostly publishing popular fiction, primarily science fiction and fantasy.
2. ‘On her sickbed in Urfahr my mother lay dying …’
A small village near to – and now a suburb of – the Austrian city of Linz.
3. ‘I had been residing in Vienna at that time, attempting to enrol in the Academy of Fine Arts …’
As noted previously, Wolf was not accepted into the academy.
4. ‘“The Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria. And step on it!” The driver chuckled as though Wolf had said something funny …’
It seems probable Wolf’s English tended to incorporate elements of slang borrowed, sometimes inappropriately, from the kind of books he was reading. ‘Step on it’ – referring to a driver pressing down on the gas pedal of an automobile – dates some twenty years back and is probably of American origin.
Chapter 12
1. ‘I was dressed in my beat-up old raincoat, a suit that’s seen better days, scuffed shoes and a fedora that didn’t quite fit me … I don’t know how much Rubenstein’s house was worth but my guess was plenty. I was calling on Jewish money …’
Wolf is again, here, and perhaps unconsciously, echoing the words of the writer Raymond Chandler, specifically the opening scene of Chandler’s debut, The Big Sleep. It is possible Wolf read the novel on publication – it had come out in the UK, published by Hamish Hamilton, in M
arch of 1939.
2. ‘The kind of boiseries to give Syrie Maugham heart palpitations …’
Syrie Maugham (1879–1955) was a leading British interior designer; with her penchant for white, airy rooms, she probably would not have approved of the boiseries (ornately carved wainscoting) Wolf mentions.
Chapter 13
1. ‘Who the fuck is Adolf Eichmann!’
Adolf Eichmann joined the Nazi Party in 1932 as a member of the General SS. As such, he would have been unknown to Wolf at the time.
Chapter 14
1. ‘Auschwitz was not created by the devil,’ he wrote, ‘but by men, like you, or me.’
See Ka-Tzetnik, The Code (1987).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my editor, Anne Perry, for turning this manuscript from an impossibility into a reality, my endless thanks.
To Oliver Johnson, Ellie Cheele, Fleur Clarke, Sharan Matharu, Naomi Berwin and everyone at Hodder for all your help and support.
To friends who at various times read the manuscript, offered suggestions, or just listened to my complaints: in no particular order my thanks to Shimon Adaf, Nir Yaniv, Rebecca Levene, Benjanun Sriduangkaew, Konrad Walewski, Tade Thompson and Nicola Sinclair. This book is better for your being there.
To my friend and agent, John Berlyne, who got it.
And to my wife, for putting up with me.
A Man Lies Dreaming Page 29