Hansel arrived just after lunch on the afternoon of February 4th. Haggard, he tumbled out of the staff car, embraced Gretel and Paule gratefully, and let them lead him into the house so they could close the doors and hear what had happened.
He took off his huge coat, poured himself a stiff whiskey, and stood with his back to the fire. The women did not prompt him; they could feel the trouble like electricity in the air.
“Has the news gotten here yet?”
“Dear Hansel, what news?”
“Hitler has brought down not only his very own von Blomberg but the army’s own von Fritsch as well.”
“Hansel!”
“And hardly a man—except for Beck, Stuelpnagel, Adam, myself, and a few others—has even so much as protested.”
“But why?’
Hansel snorted. “Keitel is the new Chief of Staff of something called the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. Keitel!”
Gretel’s face showed her disgust. “You must tell us the whole story, Hansel dear. This is a catastrophe.”
“Horrible story.” He knocked the whiskey back. “You see, Blomberg and a woman named Erna Gruhn were married last month. It was very quiet, but Hitler and Goering were witnesses. It was hardly reported in the press, von Stuelpnagel tells me. She is far below Blomberg’s class, but how far—well, no one dared to guess.”
“A scandal?”
“My God, what a scandal. Count Helldorf, the Police President of Berlin, was embarrassed to find certain dossiers of the Frau Feldmarschall’s past life. Helldorf is inclined to be a Nazi, no doubt about that, but he was an officer of hussars first, and he still retains a certain devotion to the military tradition. He knew that if Himmler got the dossier he would never stop blackmailing the army. According to regulations, the dossier should have gone to Himmler, but instead Helldorf took it to Blomberg’s closest associate—to Blomberg’s own relative, Keitel. And can you guess what Keitel did with these dreadfully incriminating papers?”
“He burned them?” Gretel asked tentatively.
“He passed them on to Hermann Goering!” Hansel shouted, his face grown scarlet.
“My God!”
“What is going to happen?” Paule asked. “Keitel hates Veelee.”
“It has already happened,” Hansel said. “Stuelpnagel called me in Italy and said that playful telephone calls were coming into the Bendlerstrasse from the whores in every restaurant and café up and down the Wilhelmstrasse, and that Goering had seen Hitler. Of course I came directly to Berlin.”
“Frau Feldmarschall von Blomberg had been … a whore?” Gretel asked with mounting horror.
“Oh, quite active, quite successful. And Hitler, that hypocrite who blandly pretends not to see the mountain of pederasts in the SA, became morally outraged. Blomberg must go, he cried. Everyone knew that Blomberg’s only possible successor would be von Fritsch, our Commander in Chief and a representative of the old army—so Himmler at once produced evidence for his Fuehrer that Fritsch was a raving homosexual.”
“Fritsch?” Gretel cried. “Preposterous!”
Over a day later Paule realized that perhaps her father had not been Gretel’s lone stray moment.
“Of course preposterous,” Hansel said, “why, many’s the time he and I—but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, they dredged up some male prostitute who lurks in public toilets for the Gestapo. He identified Fritsch as his client and Hitler—the filthy little blackmailer—demanded Fritsch’s resignation in return for silence, but of course Fritsch would not resign. He demanded a court-martial, but Hitler would have none of that and our Commander in Chief was sent off on indefinite leave.”
Paule watched the outrage of her friends with pity. Here was the end of their fantasy about controlling that pushy little politician. She sensed that Gretel realized what had happened to all of them, but it was obvious that Hansel had not the slightest inkling of the disaster. To him, it seemed to be a shocking matter which might happen once in a century in a gentlemen’s club.
“And then what, Hansel,” his wife asked sharply.
“Gretel, I tell you it was like the day five years ago when von Schleicher came back to the Bendlerstrasse after Hitler had discharged him. We all were outraged, of course. The same men even spoke the same pieces. Beck took charge and said we must act at once to sweep this pigsty clean and restore the honor of the army. The very next day was the anniversary of the Kaiser’s birthday, but everyone argued that we must not risk civil war, that aside from this rotten little affair of Blomberg and Fritsch, the Austrian corporal still danced to our tune. One of the more shocking things was that Fritsch—I mean, we have all regarded Fritsch as such a strong man, haven’t we?—Fritsch fell to pieces. I mean to say, Beck doesn’t have the stature; only Fritsch could have rallied all of us. But even while Beck was pleading with us, even while I myself was moved to stand beside first Beck, then von Stuelpnagel, and finally Adam—even then Fritsch had his pen in his hand and was writing out his resignation from the army.”
“Oh, Hansel! What a tragedy!”
The general shrugged. “I was shocked. Then von Brauchitsch said that all of us—including Fritsch—had better remember the oath of loyalty we had taken to the Fuehrer. From Reichenau I would have expected such a thing, but from Brauchitsch?”
“What are you going to do?”
“At least that is clear, my dear. The army has been dishonored, and if it will not defend itself against that little guttersnipe then he deserves to dominate them.”
“Them?” Gretel cried. “Them?”
“I have resigned from the German Army.”
“Hansel. Oh, darling Hans, you are wonderful!” She rushed to him and hugged him.
“This is too big a thing for suicide,” he said, his chin thrust over Gretel’s shoulder. “I told Fritsch that. I am proud of my country and I am proud of its army, but if every officer—at least every officer of field rank—does not resign before the announcement of these wretched changes, then I will feel shame for the army and dread for my country.”
Gretel was an army wife. “We must start with opposition,” she said excitedly, “then we can build resistance until we are strong enough for conspiracy.”
Paule watched these pathetic children at their games. “Has Veelee resigned?” she asked finally. Her arms trembled and she had to cross them tightly in front of her. This was not part of a game; she had heard Hitler and she believed him. He wanted to kill her and her son.
“I don’t know if the news has reached Spain yet,” Hansel said slowly.
“Of course it has,” Gretel said, without thinking. “They must have known as fast as you in Italy.”
“Do you think Veelee has resigned?” Paule asked tensely.
“Well, he’s rather out of the combat area, so to speak,” Hansel said. “He’s doing quite delicate work of a diplomatic and intelligence nature, as it were.”
“What has that got to do with his honor?” Paule asked. “If he and all other officers resign, there will be no Hitler. When there is no Hitler, a sane government can run the country and the officers can return to their posts. Even if he was sent to South Africa or the Antarctic, he is still an army officer. If Hans has resigned, then Veelee must resign.”
“But it is a matter of personal choice, isn’t it, dear?” Gretel said. “I mean, they can’t all be expected to resign. You heard what Brauchitsch said about the oath.”
“What oath? Hitler is a criminal. Would Brauchitsch or Veelee honor their oath to a criminal?”
“For some it is more complicated,” Hansel said hastily. “What Brauchitsch said after Hitler made him Army Chief of Staff—”
“Brauchitsch?” Gretel exploded. “My God, how much is there left which you haven’t told us yet?”
“Brauchitsch said, ‘Why should I take action against Hitler? The people elected him, and the workers and all other Germans are perfectly satisfied with his successful policy.’”
Paule said, “Veelee must resign.�
� Her voice broke. “He must. This is our last chance. Our last chance.” She walked out of the room.
“Don’t you believe it, darling,” Hansel called after her. “Hitler’s good luck can’t last forever. We’ll get him eventually. Rome wasn’t destroyed in one day.”
Paule waited for a letter from Veelee through eight days of discussion and debate in his great-grandfather’s houses. Hansel, who kept in close touch with the Bendlerstrasse, was dismayed at first that his resignation did not seem to have had the tiniest effect. Brauchitsch agreed with Hitler to relieve sixteen high-ranking generals of their commands. Forty-four others were transferred to different duties. Hitler named himself War Minister and Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces. Keitel became Hitler’s lakaitel, and the iron-brained Ribbentrop became Foreign Minister. “There are only three groups left now,” Gretel said. “Nazis, non-Nazis, and anti-Nazis.”
“What is Veelee?” Paule asked.
“Veelee is a tank commander,” Hansel told her, “so he is non-Nazi.”
“Why?”
“Well, he certainly isn’t Nazi. And since Hitler has shown that he values tanks very highly, how could Veelee be anti-Nazi?”
When the letter from Veelee finally arrived, delayed because of the difficulty of getting it out of Spain, Paule went to her room and saw no one except Paul-Alain and Clotilde for two days. When Gretel pleaded to know what was happening, Clotilde could only say sadly, “She doesn’t talk at all, Madame. She just keeps writing, then tearing it up, then writing again.”
“What is she writing?”
“I think it is a letter to her husband.”
Dearest Willi:
I have your letter which tells of your “surprise” at the changes made in the army, of Blomberg’s effrontery in marrying a prostitute, and of Hitlers charges against General von Fritsch. You express the usual professional anxieties over Keitel’s ascension and you remember Brauchitsch with reserved regard and you write as though this were the sort of intrigue one must expect in a boys’ school.
What about your army? What has become of that army which was using the upstart Hitler, which was there to protect your wife and son? Who will protect us from your government now? In all of your large country must we remain in Wusterwitz because it is the only place you can feel that we are safe from your leader?
What about the honor of your army which has been sent to kneel at his feet at the snap of his fingers? Your honor has empty eye sockets, is deaf, and is bred without a sense of smell or taste—it can touch filth and not withdraw in horror. How will your beloved country be saved from the pit of horror which your leader and your army has dug for it? Can you say that—
Paule destroyed this letter too, then solved her quandary by writing to him only we-are-all-fine-and-Paul-Alain-is-such-a-big-boy letters, which she posted to him once a month. She became so silent that her presence among others was oppressive.
In April, when Brauchitsch advised Hansel that his resignation could not be accepted and that he was “suspended” until recall—which would be soon—Hansel wept in his happiness and Gretel beamed like a lighthouse.
Fifteen
Hitler had occupied Austria in March and was in a forgiving, expansive mood. The army was very grateful, and Paule was doomed to listen to army gossip all through the spring and summer until she could bear it no longer. When Fritsch, the former Commander in Chief of the German Army, actually accepted reinstatement by the Fuehrer’s gracious sufferance and, after having had shame and disgrace lavished on him, humbly accepted a post as Colonel in Chief of the Twelfth Regiment of Artillery, Paule could tolerate army prattle no longer. She told Gretel she must return to Berlin because she had to begin to think about a school for Paul-Alain and thanked her with all her heart for her loving kindness. The two women wept together. Paule pointed out that, after all, Gisele and Philip were back in Berlin and that by now she was quite German enough to be able to take care of herself, so Hansel and Gretel bid her Godspeed and she returned to the flat in Charlottenburg.
Paule wanted to demand that Veelee make a choice between his wife and son, and his passive non-Nazism, but she could not for the same reason that she had prayed night after night when her father was about to leave a wife. She was inside a family, her own family, and if she resisted too strongly she might find herself alone. She could not find the strength to overcome that fear.
The horror began again on the morning of the second day of her return to the city. The bell rang and the loathesome block warden was slouching against the frame of the door when she opened it. He brushed past her into the large sunny parlor and sat down. “Are you pregnant, Frau von Rhode?” he asked. He spoke in a Saxon dialect whose intonations, even in normal conversation, were those of a highly insulted person complaining strenuously. In the uniform of his office the block warden had the right to enter any flat at any time and to ask whatever questions he felt necessary.
“No, Herr Waegel.”
“The Fuehrer looks for more good Germans, Frau von Rhode. But your husband has not been home for some time, hey? It is better not being pregnant, hey?”
“Yes, Herr Waegel.”
“Are you a subscriber to the Sturmer?”
“No, Herr Waegel.”
“Then how can we be sure that you know that Jews are our burden and scourge, Frau von Rhode?”
“Our Fuehrer tells us that, Herr Waegel.”
“You are a Jew, are you not, Frau von Rhode?”
“Yes, Herr Waegel.”
“This is a nice flat. A big flat for one woman and a baby and two servants. You have a wireless set. How much did you give to Winter Relief, Frau von Rhode?”
“My husband, Colonel Wilhelm von Rhode, Herr auf Klein-Kusserow und Wusterwitz, makes the contributions to Winter Relief for us, Herr Waegel.”
“I am sure he is generous. He is a German soldier. He understands honor. He knows his duty.”
“He understands, Herr Waegel. He knows.”
“Still, one must not create a bad impression, Frau Colonel von Rhode.” He got up and shuffled to the door. “Heil Hitler.”
That one must not create a bad impression underscored everything everyone did in Berlin, Paule thought. The Fuehrer had issued a special decree proclaiming that no one could be forced to subscribe to the Party newspaper. But it made a bad impression if one did not. There was no law that one must do thus and so, but almost anything might happen if one did not.
“I said Heil Hitler, Frau von Rhode.” The block warden was still waiting in the open doorway.
“Heil Hitler, Herr Waegel,” Paule replied with spirit.
The flat faced the back of the SS Fuehrerschule, the advanced training college for SS officers at #1 Schlosstrasse. Paule was aware of the diffident and very correct young SS men when she walked with Paul-Alain in the Schlossgarten. But she was even more conscious of the almost continual presence of a particular SS Obersturmbannfuehrer. Whenever she walked in the park he would come striding along and greet her heartily. Once he lifted Paul-Alain for a drink at the water fountain, and he tipped his cap pleasantly to Paule before walking away.
One morning as she sat in the mid-October sun and the cold air, watching Paul-Alain as he played with other children at the swings, the SS Obersturmbannfuehrer appeared from out of nowhere and asked permission to sit beside her. She did not answer, but moved over on the bench to make plenty of room.
“We pass each other so often,” the SS Obersturmbannfuehrer said pleasantly, “that I feel we are neighbors.” Paule did not answer. “I am SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Eberhard Drayst,” he said.
“How do you do?” Paule said without looking up.
“And you are Frau von Rhode?” he said.
“I am Frau Colonel Wilhelm von Rhode.”
“I know. I have become so interested in seeing you in this park that I took the liberty of calling for your dossier.”
“How delicately you put it.”
He chuckled. “I learn that your husband is
in Spain, that your father was the great French actor Paul-Alain Bernheim, that one of your brothers-in-law rejected the Fuehrer at the time of the disgraceful Blomberg-Fritsch incident, and that another brother-in-law is a factor in our Foreign Office. You are a Jew.” He paused. She turned slowly to look at him and he smiled brilliantly, his eyes crinkling. “You have a most interesting dossier. Most of them are quite dull, you know.”
“Perhaps it is better to be dull?”
“It is best to be a beautiful Jew like you, Frau Colonel von Rhode.”
She stood up instantly and called Paul-Alain. When he looked up wonderingly she called him more sharply, and he trotted to her side and they left the park at once. She almost ran to assuage the fear rising within her, thinking vaguely that she could not come back to the Schlossgarten again, yet knowing that no matter where she went he would move in his dainty and deliberate way to find her. When they reached the flat she removed from the bureau Veelee’s service pistol which he had taught her how to fire. She loaded the magazine, then placed the gun in the small, shallow drawer of the table beside the front door. That afternoon she ordered chain locks for the front and back doors, and she would not hear the locksmith’s protests that he could not possibly come to install them until the next day. She went to his shop and said she would wait there until closing time if necessary, but that the locks had to be on her doors before evening. Grumbling, the man went with her, and the locks were installed.
Paule and Clotilde went over the food supply, made a list to augment it and the provisions were in the apartment before noon the next day. Explaining to Clotilde that times were much too tense for either of them to go out in the evenings without escort, she drilled the maid over and over again to be sure that the chain locks were fastened if she were in the apartment alone. If for any peculiar reason Paule were called away, Clotilde must not, under any circumstances, unchain the doors unless she heard Paule’s voice—and only Paule’s voice—ask her to open up.
Paule heard no more from SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Drayst, nor did she see him again on the street, but she did not relax her guard.
An Infinity of Mirrors Page 13