A mutter arose from the few Hon. Members who wished to dig up old scores. Lloyd George himself might have wished to Hang the Kaiser sixteen years ago; now he only lolled in his seat and smiled, enigmatically.
"What about the situation in Germany?"
President Roosevelt sat at his ease, at his desk, surveying the reporters who stood around him with a lordly air. In the past year he had learned how to deal with Republicans and other such nuisances, and now he leisurely flicked the ash off his cigarette before launching into the answer. (In any case he had already known the question, it having been submitted beforehand.)
"Baron von Richthofen has reduced unemployment in Germany."
They laughed.
"We shall see as to the dedication to democracy of this revived monarchy. I have instructed Ambassador Dodd to re-present his credentials to the Kaiser, as Baron von Richthofen's government still seems to be holding power in Germany."
"Miller, Washington Post. What about the new constitution there?"
Now the President looked more concerned. "Our people at State are looking it over. Some of the features, such as this 'Declaration of Rights', are very favorable. We are digging into the details of the new election provisions to determine if they are acceptable.
"Clearly, Baron von Richthofen had been laying these plans for a long time. This revised German Constitution shows the work of several hands, we believe.
"I must say, though, for a aviator he has become quite the master of parliamentary procedure. I wish Congress would be so amenable!"
"What about the situation in Germany?"
"Comrade Stalin, we did --"
The General Secretary was meeting with the German comrades -- Thälmann, Münzenberg, Torgler, Könen, Katz -- in a little office in the cellars of the Kremlin. Ivan Grozny had dominated the boyars by such tricks, and Joseph the Dread was hardly one to disdain a good tactic on mere class grounds. He cut off Comrade Thälmann's lame attempt at an explanation with a snarl.
"Why did you not stop the vote? Why did you walk out of the session?"
Thälmann said, nervous, "Comrade, the orders of Comrade --"
"But why did you obey the orders of a Trotskyist deviationist spy?"
From Stalin's feral tone it was patent that the representative of the Comintern to Germany was now the late representative, having obediently transmitted Stalin's orders, only to fall victim to one of the Great Leader and Teacher's revolutionary about-turns.
"Bah," said Stalin as his mood abruptly changed. "One degenerate reactionary feudal piece of scum is like another. The enemies of the proletariat have taken off their velvet glove now, comrades, displaying the iron fist that has always lain beneath, but showing its weakness. Now that they have been forced into unmasking their true nature, the inevitable victory of Communism is all the closer. It is necessary that the revolutionary Communist vanguard of the proletariat take the lead in working for the overthrow of this system, which has shown itself on its last legs by this act of utter desperation.
"The people expect results."
For which read "Stalin expects results." There was a reprieve involved, though; for now, the leadership of the German Communist Party would not be unmasked as enemies of the people.
BOOK THREE
A KAISER, BY GOD'S GRACE
CHAPTER 15
Preussischestadtschloss, Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany, Tuesday, August 7. 1934
Meissner was unaccustomed to his new position, accustomed though he was to performing it. "Did you have to move so fast, Herr von Richthofen?" he said to the guest.
They waited in an ornate room of the former, and now again, Imperial Palace. Sixteen years ago, less a few months, the Bolsheviks had proclaimed a Soviet Germany from here, now the Hohenzollern heir had returned to the scene of the crime. The place had been neglected; someone had tried to start a fire there last year, and other types of disarray had supervened. The new Kaiser, however, had shown himself almost depressingly cheery.
Manfred explained the situation again. "Now," he said in conclusion, "Protocol demands that I pay the visit, and not the other way round. I presume that we will get rid of the extremes of court function -- certainly the Social Democrats will have a say in the matter."
The former Staatsekretär, now Chamberlain, did not seem particularly pleased by the mention of Red November Traitors. But Meissner said nothing about the matter, and at 10 precisely (oh to be a Beamter and live every moment to the precise and absolute second) he turned the doorknob, then said, deferentially, "Your Majesty, Your Chancellor requests the favor of an audience."
Louis-Ferdinand was sitting in an as ornate room, in an ornate chair. He looked as uncomfortable as Manfred felt. Unexpectedly for his grandfather's grandson, but perhaps less so for his father's son, he was dressed in civilian clothes. A controlled gesture of recognition appeared on his face. "The favor is granted. Now if you will leave Me with My Chancellor, Herr Chamberlain?"
Meissner reacted as if the man requesting his departure had not been the man sitting there, but the man in Doorn. He bowed almost grovelingly and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.
The Kaiser gestured to another chair. "Please sit down, Herr von Richthofen, and for God's sake don't stand on formality. I've somehow managed to live sixteen years without it and I think I can manage now."
Manfred inclined his head, politely, and sat in the chair (which was indeed as uncomfortable as it looked). He said, "Your Majesty --"
"Herr von Richthofen, if either of us has earned deference, it's you, not me. So if I can call you 'Manfred' you can call me 'Lulu'."
The laugh got out. After a moment Manfred decided to endure having committed the solecism and go on as if he hadn't; he said, "'Lulu'?"
"There, that broke the ice!" And the Kaiser smiled. He was of a more cheery nature than his grandfather, more serious than his father. Manfred had sometimes suspected that the former Kronprinz had been in the habit of wearing absurdly huge hussar caps to show how silly he thought the entire militaristic culture was. The prime example of silliness, of course, being the former Kaiser having an entire closet of nothing but naval uniforms, even wearing one to see a performance of The Flying Dutchman.
"'Louis'," Manfred said. "And Louis, your Reich is still in a mess, though not as bad as it was last year." With that he began an explanation of the parlous state of the Reich. The economy was indeed recovering, though it was not what it had been in 1928. Bolko had liquidated their holdings in time, for the second time, but others hadn't been so lucky. Still, the country was recuperating and would actually have decent roads, airports, dams, and the like.
"Yes," Louis-Ferdinand said. "Mr. Ford even gave the employees a pay raise, he figured that more spending by the workers would snap the country out of the Depression."
"If it were only so easy," Manfred said. "I had asked Herr Schacht about why the American economy came apart so quickly, and my brother asked his professor friends, and they all said the same thing, that the American central bank tried to cut back the money supply. They used a lot of fancy words -- too much for a poor thick-headed pilot like myself to understand."
"Or an assembly-line worker."
"That was why the government -- your government now -- didn't cut back on our money supply, and as a result we seem to be recovering faster than the Americans. Not that it's good either place. There are still fears, and I for one don't consider them unfounded, about a return of the grand inflation from after the War.
"But enough of economics. Politics here is no less dismal. You know about our local problem, the Nazis. Between them and the Bolsheviks, this government is a nightmare. The only things the parties of the government dislike more than each other are the Nazis and Bolsheviks, and the only thing they fear more than them is me.
"Not that they don't have their own problems, too." Manfred went on to describe the dissent within the Nazi ranks and describe how Nazi governments (of differing factions) still held power in several
of the states of the Reich. The Bolsheviks were not so fortunate but they had Stalin nearby, and only Hugenberg had more papers than Herr Münzenberg, so Stalin and Thälmann always could count on good press.
The Kaiser's good cheer had gradually vanished as the Reichskanzler explained the gravity of the situation. The ornate room now seemed to clash even more horribly with the deadly seriousness of the situation. After Manfred fell silent at the end of the political discourse Louis-Ferdinand said, "And this is why I am here?"
Manfred explained the decision to forego in a somewhat legalistic way a new Presidential election. "Like all my good ideas, it seems," he said, "it was actually thought up by someone else, Brüning in this case, and for the same reason, wanting to avoid an election that Herr Hitler might have won. He had actually managed to get some of the union leaders behind the idea, and of course the Army and the Nationalists would hardly oppose him in that. And like so many of his good plans, he kept it strictly secret, and all the good he could have done by putting them into operation never came to pass once he fell from power."
Louis-Ferdinand said, "That's an interesting comment. Before Grandfather summoned me here, I read that Herr Brüning was giving lectures in New York about 'the revival of Kaiserism in Germany.' He was happy to hear that, but I don't think Brüning had quite the same idea in mind."
All Manfred could do was repeat what Wels had said: "'Better a Kaiser, by God's Grace anointed, than Berchtesgaden's Hitler, by himself appointed.'"
"A good perspective, but, you understand that I may be somewhat biased on the matter."
Manfred looked around the room before replying. "Worse yet, I have to go through all this again. Your cabinet will be received at eleven, and I think I have just enough time to put on my tailcoat and all my medals . . ."
And, sure enough, at eleven, the cabinet procession entered the room, where the Kaiser managed not to look bored. They lined up, the two Vizekanzler at the right and the rest of the ministers in order by seniority, except for Papen, who was now ahead of Schwerin von Krosigk, the whole preceded by their Reichskanzler, with his enormous array of awards and signs of honor.
The reception went off with no more than the expected number of gaffes, including Hugenberg bowing deeply and kissing the hand of the All-Highest Supreme Warlord of Germany (which was how he addressed the Kaiser), after his colleague and equal Braun had nodded politely to the less-bad choice of head of state. No one threatened Papen, or indeed any other party in the Grand Coalition. Or Government of National Concentration. Sometime, Manfred wondered, how was he to keep the government together if its members couldn't agree on what to call it?
Not surprisingly, the official reception would get good coverage in Hugenberg's Lokalanzeiger and its fellow papers, and in Papen's Germania. He could expect that, as much as he could expect calumny and vituperation from Herr Doktor Goebbels and Comrade Münzenberg. What the Ullsteins would do, well . . . Abroad was what he was worried about. The gentleman from Colonel Astor's Times should produce a report of how all the centrist (it amused him, sometimes, to see Hugenberg and the more immoderate Social Democrats described as "centrist") parties of Germany were unified in their defense of democracy.
Cameras flashed, scriveners scribbled, and the ritual of formally presenting the democratic (more or less) cabinet of Germany to its constitutional (more or less) monarch went on. Max of Baden would have been proud.
Before they lunched, Manfred took his new leader to a window and gestured outside. "I have to live with that every week." Below them, a long column of black-uniformed men marched in formation down the street.
"The loyalist faction," Manfred went on. "No doubt tomorrow, the brown-shirted faction, Herr Röhm's, will show that they are just as brave by marching after. And the Bolsheviks after that. I believe that even our uncertain all -- associate Herr Strasser has his own uniformed guard. Do you see what I am driven to?"
Louis-Ferdinand looked down at his not altogether loyal subjects and sighed, then said, "Yes I do. I thought things were bad in America but . . . the Ku Klux Klan there has fallen apart. There was some man in Detroit, blathering even worse than Mr. Ford about financiers, but he doesn't amount to anything. There's nothing like this there."
"What amazes me is that we have democracy at all."
"What amazes me is that you have democracy at all," the new arrival said in his Frenchified accent. "In a situation like this, most American governors would have called out the National Guard by now and had those people shot on sight."
The publisher had just been living the stories he published, flying across the Atlantic in the Graf Zeppelin to meet with the scientific industrialist turned chief of government, a week after the latest revolution. (With all the Martian empires and Venusian kingdoms his writers wrote of, the situation here should not have been that much of a dissonance to him) Herr Gernsback now was the guest of his distinguished writer, and no doubt would want to get a statement.
Manfred looked around the office and then sighed a little. "Hugo," he said, "we tried that. The Bolsheviks in 1919 and the Nazis in 1923, down in Munich. It worked for a while. If you want to hear about the former matter, I can set up an interview with the Reichswehr Minister Herr Noske, who was one of the prime movers in the former event.
"As for having an auxiliary reserve, we don't have anything like that."
There was no need to leak details of the coming army expansion.
"Actually," Gernsback said, "I'd like to see what's going on with the aircraft industry. And other science; the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Do you think Professor Einstein will be coming back to Germany?"
"I understand he's pretty well settled in where he is, at one of your universities," Manfred said, wondering how his interviewer would look if he mentioned that the Social Democrats had proposed making Professior Einstein the new Reichspräsident. Probably approve of it.
"And, have you had any essays since then? I can imagine how busy you have been, but perhaps a commentary on the last few months' events in aviation . . ." Editors always looked for material, just as chancellors looked for political advantage.
Gernsback would be a useful additional source, someone to present his view of the German crisis to the American people. He would certainly get a look at the new monoplanes they were developing in Anhalt and Munich, and see the new airship being assembled by the Zeppelinwerke.
It was a good change to speak to someone who didn't think of politics day, night, and in between the ticks of the clock. Who else was like that?
Most people in Germany could tell the difference between the Richthofen brothers, so when Herr von Richthofen and Herr Udet showed up, it was pretty clear that it was Bolko who was greeting his brother's guest. Particularly since Viktoria had accompanied her husband.
"So she is going to be staying with your mother?" Udet said as they waited in the airport reception room.
Bolko said, "Propriety. Even though she is married."
"She broke up her husband's previous marriage," Viktoria said, a trifle disapprovingly. "But then, Manfred . . . Is that it?"
The little Lockheed plane from London was entering the landing pattern. The Richthofen hangar would have an extra occupant that night, and after that, so would the Richthofen home in Schweitnitz. Meanwhile, the high-ranking officials of the government and the aircraft industry fretted, instead of being concerned. Losing their visitor might cause international problems . . .
A few minutes later she herself entered, asking "Which way is Customs?"
"You're already cleared," Bolko said. "I'm Manfred's brother Bolko, and this is my wife, Viktoria, and Manfred's and my friend Ernst Udet."
"And everybody knows Amelia Earhart!" Udet said. "Come on, Manfred wants to meet you!"
Viktoria had once observed that, from the way he drove, she was surprised that Udet did not have "Certainly not you!" on the bumper of his car, the way he did on his airplanes. The ladies sat in back, but she realized she had little to say. Porters loaded Fraul
ein Earhart's (or Frau Putnam's) luggage into the car, and then, with a grinding burst of speed, Germany's Nr. 2 Ace and Nr. 1 Movie Star Pilot set off for the Reichskanzlei.
"You understand, I was pleased that the Red -- er, the Chancellor invited me," Earhart said as the car rounded a corner, out the gate and on to the Belle Alliancestrasse, throwing her up against Viktoria in the process. "Why the big show?"
"What big show?" Udet said, nearly running down a traffic policeman at Belle Alliance Square at the turn to the Wilhelmstrasse.
"He always drives like this," Viktoria said, chiding.
"No -- oof -- I mean, being received by the Chancellor and everything!"
Amid blaring horns, Udet swerved around a slow-moving truck on the Wilhelmstrasse and just beat another one coming the other way. "Oh, no, not at all!" he said. "Just the Minister for Air, Herr Milch, and his Special Assistant, myself."
Much to the general amazement, they managed to get to the Reichskanzlei alive and generally unhurt. Even more fortunately, the street was not full of marchers. After that stirring ride, Bolko decided to take the honored guest in himself. He and Viktoria disembarked and escorted her past the sentries at the main door, while Udet handed over the car to get pulled in and unloaded.
Manfred had been alerted and he was standing to greet them. "Miss Earhart!" he said, cheerfully, when they came in. "How was your flight? It's so good to meet you!"
She smiled in that affecting way that had boosted her image all the more. "I'm glad to have made it. The turbulence on the last stage . . "
"Ernst drove," Bolko said.
Manfred laughed. "Our Udet has a way with the wheel. Please, take a seat, would you like something to drink? I'd love to hear more about this flight across the Pacific! You must tell me everything! Whatever I can do to help, just ask!"
A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany Page 25