A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany

by Joseph T Major

  Comrade Yagoda was immediately ordered to root out the Trotskyite wreckers who had somehow got into TASS and issued forged communiques intended to make the Great Stalin look foolish. Meanwhile, the Great Leader and Teacher himself received some members of the foreign press to comment on the news from the west. "This is nothing -- nothing," he said. "One degenerate aristocratic lackey of the feudal capitalist system is just like another."

  Stalin had had plans. Undercover emissaries had been traveling covertly to Berlin to secretly negotiate with Hitler, even as openly they denounced each other. Each of them needed a Great Enemy. And if Thälmann and the other party comrades were rounded up and shot, so what? The German Party needed a purge, it was rife with Trotskyites, deviationists, and agents of capitalism. Were this Hitler under proper party discipline he would have been unmasked as a Trotskyite agent of capitalism, confessed his errors, and been liquidated!

  The problem of Germany must be settled by other means. In time, of course, the fundamental contradictions of capitalism would bring down this petty-bourgeois German government and its deviationist Social Fascist supporters. Meanwhile, the party would go on. Comrade Münzenberg would have to be informed the details of the proper Party Line, but he was a good Stalinist and would loyally carry out Revolutionary About-Turns.

  Franz von Papen did not envy his French colleagues, M. Laval, M. Tardieu, M. Hérriot, M. Paul-Boncourt, and now M. Daladier. Indeed, it amused him to note that while he had been described as presiding over a shaky, unpopular government, the French government had fallen repeatedly in the previous year, four times in fact, had fallen again, over the same weekend that he and Richthofen had come into power, and no doubt would soon fall yet again. He had said as much to the new Reichskanzler, when they met after that amazing Reichstag session to sort out the political mess that was going on.

  "I haven't been in France since 1918," Manfred had replied. "That wasn't exactly the ordinary way of visiting, either. Then, in '27, I sent the government a message of condolence when Nungesser and Coli disappeared, and didn't even get a form letter in reply.

  "I doubt we'll hear from them this time, either. . . to change the subject, what's the meaning of this note from the American ambassador? 'The Special Representative of the President will be arriving next week to present the personal greetings of the President, and I beg leave to defer my official reception until that time.'? Are the Americans putting things off because they think Herr Hitler will get in?"

  Papen drummed his fingers on the table, thinking. "I didn't exactly meet Ambassador Sackett when I was in that chair . . . From all I hear, and from what Herr von Neurath reports, the American government is favorably disposed to us. The incoming President, this Roosevelt, seems also to be impressed. I just don't know what the problem is. There may not be one."

  CHAPTER 8

  Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany, Monday, February 6, 1933

  The Wilhelmstrasse was full again that day, marching storm troopers parading in brown ranks past the Reichskanzlei in the daily Nazi march-past. The current inhabitant had resigned himself to occasionally having to enter and leave the official residence by the back door.

  If the streets were full so were the sidewalks. The guard on the Reichskanzlei and the Reichspräsidentenpalais was augmented, while the new Nothilfsordnungspolizei clustered along the streets in greater numbers. Moldenhauer had commented, ruefully, "The Stahlhelm men somehow all seem to wear red, white, and black somewhere, while all the Reichsbanner have somehow acquired red ties."

  "Just so long as they aren't brown," Manfred said.

  He was keeping track of what Dr. Goebbels was saying in the Völkischer Beobachter. The February 1 issue had had announcements of Nazi rallies, shrill heraldings of the electoral victory in Lippe as wave of the future -- and a cartoon of a stolid old man, sitting with a round-headed kid who looked remarkably like Papen, holding the leash of a dog in a flying helmet. At least it made a change from their usual slavering, filthy, blimp-nosed subjects.

  Since then, it had been a return to the steady drumbeat of denunciations of the "new Cabinet of Barons", interspersed with the usual accusations. At least it wasn't that other paper of theirs. "Betrayer of Germany, How Much Gold Has World Jewry Poured Into Your Pockets?" blazed in red across the pages of Der Stürmer. (Bolko had said, "All right, how much did they pay you? The stock market has gone up since you came to power, and I have an eye on some really good buys." He wasn't joking about the second part.)

  This hardly left any time to follow what Berlin am Morgen, Welt am Abend, Rote Fahne and the like were saying. (That last must really have angered the Nazis, to have Münzenberg steal the title of their party song.)

  The latest cabinet meeting had not gone well, either. At first, for the first hour or so, it had not gone too badly. Manfred had worked out a method; he was in effect presiding over a very small 'parliament'. They would debate and vote on measures, and once everything was agreed, he would take them to the Reichspräsident to be signed as emergency decrees. Presumably, once the party leaders could get used to working together, their followers would become similarly inclined and meetings of the Reichstag could be conducted with a marginal level of civility among the members of the Government. Last week they had met twice and each time had managed to get through an hour's debate without killing each other.

  This time they were discussing the putting into effect of Schleicher's plan. The Reich Labor Service public relief program had gone through easy enough. It would employ people by the State, which satisfied Braun. Hugenberg would be their supervisor, so he was pleased. Monsignor Kaas would learn that the workers would be taken out of the wicked cities, away from sleazy cabarets and other worldly diversions, Divine Services in Catholic (though also heretical) rites would be available, and he and his followers would be pleased. And it was temporary, or at least not permanent, which satisfied the sensibilities of the State and People's Parties.

  But then Hugenberg, who had had something to gain by the new arrangement, had nearly spoiled it all. "I suppose you will want 'Workers' Councils' in my workers' camps," he said, staring at Noske, who stared back silently.

  The lack of reply seemed to excite him. "'Workers' Councils', teaching the true faith of your Prophet Karl!" he said, his voice rising, "Bringing more of this degeneracy which has infected our youth!"

  Braun shot to his feet, "Better worker's councils than soldier's government!" he said. "Better the freedom of the working class than the dominance of the ruling class!"

  Then everyone else joined in the argument. Manfred sat silent, as if a father presiding over a family dinner that had turned into a fight. Indeed, it was almost as if the ruinous debates that had ruined Müller's government, had made life ugly for Cuno and all his other predecessors, were coming to pass again.

  He let them shout for a few minutes, until he had had about as much of this as he could take. "Adjourn for thirty minutes!" he bellowed. "And Herren, when we come back, we will stick to the agenda!" A time-out might keep them from letting differences build up fatally.

  He went to check on the march-past and found Papen sitting by the window, smoking, and viewing the brownshirts. "I am beginning to think they are as disorderly as our own parties," Papen said. "You missed the big scene, not all that long ago. The Herr Doktor got up on a box on the sidewalk and started haranguing the masses, and some of them stepped out of ranks and began screaming back. The Nopos saved him from the wrath of his party comrades."

  Manfred took a seat himself, but looked at the afternoon sky. "You slipped out early," he said.

  "I needed a break. It was going to get that way, I could tell. The party leaders are not quite like the extremes of their parties but they still have to stand up for their platforms. Even at the expense of the country."

  "They remind me of my family -- the younger generation. You know about Lothar, and Ilse's husband died in '29. Which makes me surrogate father to Lothar's two and Ilse's three, not to mention my own two boys. I learn
ed that making them think they had let me down was almost too terrible a punishment -- I had to remember to also praise them when they had done well.

  "They would fight among each other. If I made the combatants break off, usually whatever little squabble had set them off would blow over by the time they saw each other again, or at least Daddy, Uncle Manfred, could fix it."

  Papen gave a short bark of laughter. "If only our party leaders were as mature as your family!"

  Manfred stretched. "I'd better go walk around, or I will be stiff. Doesn't that out there worry you?" He jerked his head in the direction of the marching brownshirts.

  "Think of all the wonderful human material out there."

  "Who are you, the Kronprinz in disguise? Hammerstein was furious when he saw them. 'First there comes the army, then a big pile of shit, then nothing, then the SA!' he said."

  Papen looked sad at the rebuke. "They're being misled," he said. "Most of what they are being taught isn't that unacceptable. If they would get rid of a few hotheads and drop some of those wilder schemes, there wouldn't be any problem at all accepting them."

  "I think that's a problem in itself. Twenty minutes, and I need you to help me get around this petty party foolishness."

  He got up and walked away, stung. Papen had identified something all too true. So many of his cabinet members thought they could accept the Nazis. "We could have hired them," Hugenberg had said, having learned nothing from the collapse of his deal three years ago. "I could control Hitler, he would depend on me for running the economy," Schacht had said, having learned nothing from the way Strasser had been seen off.

  So many thought they could accept them because so much of what they said was acceptable. But everyone thought they would dump the parts that were personally unacceptable. Monsignor Kaas thought the anti-Church rhetoric was a ploy, they didn't really mean it. Hugenberg thought the socialism was a ploy, they didn't really mean it. And so on.

  The Nazis made sneers about Jews not being in the front line. He had wondered about that, and said that he was wondering at a reception where they were rolling out the new A50 "Junior". (Appropriately, he had put the younger Manfred in the back cockpit during the demonstration flight.) Shortly thereafter he had received a request to meet with a delegation from the Centralverein, the organization for "German Citizens of the Jewish Faith", where he was shown a large picture of, and memorial work dedicated to the memory of, Leutnant Wilhelm Frankl, Knight of the Order Pour le Mérite, twenty victories, fell fighting for the Fatherland on 8 April 1917. Or, as everything also said, Nisan 16, 5677.

  Here was one Jew who had been in the front line. Made his first kill as an observer, with a carbine! Went on to Jasta 4, no less, and two months after his death that unit had been under his own command. Hand-picked by Boelcke, so he had to have been good. Manfred had to apologize for the implication, and felt a bit ashamed. And then he remembered Voss's relatives. And Ltn. Rüdenberg from Jasta 10 -- how could the man be anything but good, he himself had chosen him! (He felt ashamed, but then the man himself hadn't made that big a point of it.) There was Rosenstein, who had had to put up with some comments from Göring -- was that any way to treat a wingman? Not to mention that fellow Beckhardt, who had taken his plane to Switzerland instead of surrendering it. "No Jews in the front line," indeed! A case of mouth running on ahead of brain. In the air, that would indeed be fatal.

  They didn't see. He walked on down the hall, turned to look over the Vossstrasse, and turned back. The hard part about his analysis was that Papen was partially right; these marchers, and their comrades across the nation, were young men who didn't see anything in conventional society for them, and yet they would have fit, normally. Some were indeed fanatics, irreconcilables, the sort who would be trouble in any organization. Many -- most, perhaps? -- were men who didn't have any other job, who couldn't even get work. In his youth they would have been conscripted, taught to be reliable and hard-working, and then released to regular jobs.

  How to save the misled and boost out the troublemakers? A larger Army would help, and so would the jobs program. A year building camps in Bavaria and canals in Pomerania, roads in Baden and stadiums in Hannover, that would give them something to do besides march down the Wilhelmstrasse. By then, just maybe, Papen's prediction of the Nazi bankruptcy and Noske's comments about their potential disunity would come to pass. Perhaps we'll be lucky.

  The meeting resumed, but without one participant. "All right, where is Herr Hugenberg?" Manfred said, looking down the table.

  "He had another meeting to go to," Bodenschatz said. He was serving as recording secretary to the cabinet as well as Staatsekretär. "I think. At least when he stormed out he did act like he was going to work, not home. He did leave a message. 'Tell the Red Schweinhund that I'll be watching his Red propaganda in my public works like a hawk!'"

  They got the basics of the plan settled. Then it would go to the professionals to have the details worked out, and next week, or thereabouts, they would vote on the proposal, send it to the Reichspräsident to be issued, and the Reichskanzler would go on the radio and make the grand announcement.

  That evening, at dinner, Bolko had bad news. "Schleicher made a fuss today," he said.

  Manfred put down his spoon. "What happened?" It was just him, Bolko, and Viktoria, who all presumably could be trusted.

  "He came by, for one thing, and when I told him the Herr Reichspräsident was busy, just sat and waited. After an hour or so, I went to see the Old Gentleman myself, and there he was, asleep at the desk.

  "Went back and asked 'Herr General, the Reichspräsident is still busy, but if you can tell me what you want to see him about, I can ask if he can spare a moment for you.'

  "He said, 'No, I won't tell your flyboy brother, which is what telling you means. Run along, Herr Kadett, and let the grown-ups talk.'

  "I started worrying that Oskar or Franzchen would come along and blow the gaff."

  "Papen?" Manfred said. "No, not Papen, not after last year when Schleicher got him turned out of office."

  "Whatever could Herr General von Schleicher have had in mind?" Viktoria said. "Does he think the Reichspräsident is just going to toss Manfred out on a whim? To put him back in again?"

  "He doesn't tell anyone anything, which was why he got into such trouble in the first place," Manfred said. "I don't think anyone knows what's going to happen next."

  The new Chancellor would be receiving the ambassadors in a week. That was a decent interval after the formation of the new government, perhaps long enough to show that they could stay in power.

  "His Excellency Ambassador Sackett and the Special Representative of the American President, Oberst Rickenbatcher, and Frau Rickenbatcher!" the greeter said, putting the name into the form he could most wrap his tongue around. The new Reichskanzler was holding a reception. Viktoria presided over the refreshments, spoke cooing words to the wives of the emissaries and the powerful. The Berlin police had closed the Wilhelmstrasse that day, thus balking the SA from blocking the ambassadors. Sir Horace Rumbold, the British Ambassador, could have walked down the street, so of course he had to drive, and similarly the representative of France, M. André François-Poncet, on both counts. Other ambassadors had farther to go. So a line of automobiles disgorged the representatives of the nations, come to see the new wonder.

  Including the tall, homely man in American uniform who appeared with Ambassador Sackett. Manfred went forward to greet them. "Herr Ambassador, such a pleasure," he said, following protocol, and then, "Eddie! What, a colonel now! Congratulations! Where's Adelaide? Oh, there you are. Welcome to Berlin!"

  Rickenbacker smiled. "Seems to me you're the one deserving the congratulations for the promotion. The President -- well, he wants me to say it in public, and we'd better wait until after all the guests have arrived."

  "Very well," Manfred said, and turned to greet the Ambassador from Czechoslovakia, leaving Ambassador Sackett and the Rickenbackers to mingle.

  A good
part of the diplomatic community had indeed arrived or would arrive. Neurath and Papen were counting the house and from time to time one or the other would send notes over explaining who was in charge and who was just for show.

  Speaking of appearances, it seemed desirable to appear to be very civilian and unaggressive. Eddie could wear his uniform, including their Medal of Honor for bravery. Why wasn't he?

  As a result, he had had to banish military types, even Noske, from the area of the reception. Instead of the two or three squads who patrolled the block, on a regular basis, along with as many platoons of Nopos, there were two police sentries at the entrance. Ach, it was a quiet Valentine's Day in Germany's capital!

  Or so Hugenberg would report it. "The Germany-Saving Cabinet, under the leadership of our Red Battle-Flyer, enjoys the respect of the whole world!" would be splashed across the pages of the Lokalanzeiger, above pictures of him with the ambassadors. UFA newsreels -- there was the cameraman now, he nodded towards the man and smiled like an idiot -- would be on every movie screen in the country, showing the ambassadors greeting him.

  For about an hour, he spoke with ambassadors and secretaries, dismissing the future of the extremists ("Germany is finally rejecting radicalism," he said to one reporter, a young Englishman) and generally being genial and optimistic. ("An optimist is someone who thinks this is the best of all possible worlds," Woollcott had written to him once. "A pessimist is sure that he's right.") He had heard rumors about François-Poncet being involved in the fall of Brüning, so while he didn't exactly snub the man, he didn't seek him out either.

  Then it came time. It was easy to pick out Eddie in the crowd, and Manfred made his way thence, saying when he got within earshot, "It's time!"