In a moment he was rescued. His face was red and he was breathing heavily, but he said, "I'm all right, I'm all right," over and over again.
They had to have an official photo shoot, and so the old veterans trooped into one of the hangars, which began to warm up once the doors were closed, while Manfred was changing back into his uniform. The photographers had prepared lighting and a place to stand. The aces all had to sit for one photo, or rather stand in a group, with Manfred in the center, flanked by Udet and Jacobs, and so on out to Osterkamp and Frommhertz on the wings.
He heard Rickenbacker say to Earhart, "Gosh, how many does that make, er . . ."
She sighed and shook her head, "Such a waste."
"Five hundred and thirty," he went on, having summed up the totals in his head.
At that someone said, "Oberst Rickenbatcher, come join us!"
"Yes, Eddie," Udet said, "Please do! Now, certainly you!" And then he laughed.
Rickenbacker looked embarrassed. "But . . . it's . . . I mean. . . "
"The War is over," Udet said. "Isn't that right, Eddie? Isn't that what you said to me that one time? And we all respect you, don't we boys?" A shout of agreement rose from the pilots -- including the new aviators, who were watching the photo shoot with mixed feelings of envy at the old lizards getting all the attention and bliss at the thought that their heroes and idols should condescend to step down from Valhalla and be with them.
Rickenbacker looked embarrassed, and Adelaide pulled at his shoulder and whispered something into his ear. Then he said, "But that'll make thirteen! We can't have that!"
Udet looked at Manfred, smiled, and said, "Do I have an idea! Oh, Amelia! How would you like to receive your due? Where's Wing Commander Collishaw? There you are, come on down."
It took a few minutes, and a good bit of arguing on George Putnam's part, not to mention shifting some benches to provide a secure platform, but before long the aces of aces were flanking the Queen of Air and Beauty, who stood on a bench above the rest, the high scorers flanked by the lesser, Manfred and Collishaw on one side, Rickenbacker on the other with Udet, who finally took his place after waving his arms and ordering everyone around like a movie director.
The cameras flashed, the two Americans and the Canadian made to leave, and then Udet said, "No, one more. Amelia, you stand there. Everyone else, turn and look at her, and raise your arms, like this . . ."
Manfred knew what he was doing but went along. He said, provoking a smile from Udet, and puzzled looks from the Americans, "My name is Richthofen, not Rotwang."
"Your name is 'Richthofen', not 'Rotwang'!" Hugenberg roared, brandishing the page of the Vössische Zeitung with the photograph spread across the front page of the pilots admiring the Queen of Air and Beauty as if she had been Futura the erotic dancer. The vice-chancellor had stormed into the Chancellery and up to Manfred's office to make his protest, his face convulsed with fury, the Ullstein paper clenched in his hands. He went on, "How could you have chosen to evoke such a . . .a. . . . decadent film!"
Manfred had seen Metropolis when it came out, but had avoided taking the boys and Carmen. Some of those dances . . . He said, "Herr Vizekanzler, I don't think it's decadent. Well, not wholly. Look at the entire movie. The virtuous maiden Maria and the others of her congregation overcome the soulless mechanics of Metropolis, the decadent robot dancer, and all the other modern horrors; they save the soul of young Freder. It displays some very traditional values, the stanch Christian values of our old Prussia . . ."
It took a while to calm down the Nationalist leader, and there were times Manfred wished Hugenberg would step down entirely from party politics, go back to running his newspapers and UFA, and let Treviranus or some other smarter leader take over the DNVP. (Treviranus's "German Conservative Party" had seen the future and had merged with the Nationalists. Now if this merger of the State Party and the People's Party would come off.) Finally, having expressed his anger, and been told, "And Frau Earhart is a virtuous woman, it was us flyers admiring one of our own who was a lady," he left, if not pleased, at least mollified.
That wasn't the only picture that he had to deal with. That afternoon, Papen came in with a cheerful look on his face and a newspaper in his hands. "Most clever stratagem, Herr Reichskanzler," he said as he entered.
Manfred looked up. "Which one?" he said.
"Making sure they don't take our new Luftstreitkräfte seriously. The Ambassador in London sent this by air."
The English newspaper was not the Times or the Telegraph but one of their less serious ones, the Daily Mirror. Manfred groaned in humiliation when he saw the front-page picture of him. Or of his legs, anyhow, waving helplessly in the air while he had plunged head-first into the cockpit. And the headline: "THE GERMAN AIR FORCE'S BEST?"
BOOK THREE
COMING TO AMERICA
INTERLUDE
New Jersey State Prison, Trenton, New Jersey, USA, Monday, April 29, 1935
The car pulled up before the grim prison walls and came to a complete stop. Two guards left their posts at the gate and went to the car door to escort the passenger sitting in the back into the prison. After all, this was a dangerous man coming to the prison: the arch-saboteur, the man who had plotted to blow up that port in Newark.
Franz von Papen was without portfolio in the government, but now he was with one on this mission. No aides to carry his documents, remind him of his points, or otherwise ease his work and speed his journey. He was of the opinion that the man he was coming to see didn't deserve all this fuss anyhow; he just another Saxon drifter and petty criminal. Except of course that others did not think so, and Richthofen was not just the only one; last week Hitler had addressed that rally in Dresden about the international Jewish conspiracy to divide the Aryan people by murdering an Aryan hero's son and blaming it on another Aryan.
Papen passed under the dark gates of the prison and the door clanged shut behind him. At least he wouldn't have to make small talk with the warden, but could be shown straight to the interview room.
The walls were of that bland color that reminded him of Silesian soil, or mustard. Unexceptional furniture, a bulb lighting the table -- this was an institution Papen had no desire to make a better acquaintance with. He sat down at the table and took out his cigarette case for a smoke. The guard with him scowled, but diplomatic immunity covers many sins, including old indictments for blowing up government property.
There was a constant undertone of clanging gates, but one loud one nearby drew his attention. He would have to be polite, and put the case on the table, restoring the one cigarette he had meant to put in his mouth. The other door to the room opened, and there he was, between two guards.
"Here's your visitor," the one guard said.
The man was in the prison garb of dull denim; Papen had been expecting stripes, like in those sensational American movies. He looked washed-out, even his pale blue eyes seemed to have a prison pallor. Reluctantly Papen remembered the demands of politeness; he got to his feet and said, "Reichsminister Franz von Papen." The man was common and rude, he slumped in a chair and muttered something. Papen went on, "I am representing the Herr Reichskanzler, who has been aware of your situation. He wishes to ensure that you are being fairly treated, and has sent his principal advisor, minister, and colleague -- myself -- to hear your side of the story."
"So he's too goode to come himself."
Papen threw up his hands in dismay. "On the contrary! Herr Hauptmann, you must understand, the Herr Reichskanzler has many demands upon his time. Why, he is with the Herr Governor Hoffman at this very moment! His capacity for toil is an inspiration to us all, but he simply cannot be everywhere at once. Let me assure you, your words are as good as in his ears even now! And, if I may disclose a confidence, he relies utterly upon my judgment in such matters as this, great and small."
He held out his cigarette case, let him pick one, and lit the man's choice before doing as much for himself. When they were at ease he settled himself down
to listen. The kidnapper began to recount his story, of an unjustly persecuted man who had had a little bit of good fortune and was being harassed by the powerful. After a minute or so of this Papen said, "Thank you for your information, but there really is no need for you to go over matters we are already aware of. I have read the transcript of the trial. There was little else to do on our flight over. What I want to know now is, what can I say to the Herr Reichskanzler?"
Hauptmann shifted and looked into Papen's eyes. "Tell him I am innocent!"
"Of everything?"
"Yes, of course! Oh, there was maybe a loafe of bread I took, but Herr von Papen, you know how bad things were after the War!"
Papen blinked, looked at his portfolio, and said, "Yes, I know how bad things were. I understand you did better here, though."
"Yes, yes, certainly. I saved my money and got into the stock market, and did very well. Then this! Lord God be my witnesse I knew nothing, nothing about any crime! Isidor, he owed me money, he left the money, and look what misery it hase brought me!"
"Yes, it was unfortunate about Herr Fisch. Consumption, was it not? That money could have bought him a bed in the finest sanatarium in the Reich. Two hundred fifty thousand Marks, in fact, could buy someone the entire facility. But he died in his bed, without a pfennig to his name."
"It was fifty thousand American dollars."
Papen acknowledged his error blandly. "Two hundred ten thousand Marks. Still quite a decent sum. One could do very well with as much. Herr Bolko von Richthofen started with less of his brother's American earnings and now look at them. But as for the late lamented Herr Fisch: did you ever hear from his heirs? Did they ever ask after anything he might have left here in America?"
"No, no. He owed me the money anyway, and now the police have it." Hauptmann broke off, put his head in his hands for a moment, and then looked up and said, "My Anna, she is so goode, she brings me the news and comes as often as they let her. And my little Manfred, she says he asks for Daddy all the time. I have supporters, in the Fatherland, too. It is bigger than those two Wops, the bank robbers! But I am innocent, and a good German! They were Communists, scum!"
"No, I do not think you are Sacco or Vanzetti," Papen said. "So I understand Herr Fisch borrowed money from you, even though he had this substantial sum of his own?"
"Yes, yes, we had a partnershipe, and then he got sick, went to the Fatherland, and, well you know."
"I understand you were planning to return, also."
Hauptmann nodded furiously, saying, "Yes, yes. Now that the Reich is at peace again. Anna, she went there and said all was welle."
"Not entirely. There are still riots, there is still fighting. The Rotfront broke up a Nationalist rally in Lubeck last week and one of them was killed."
"What a waste!"
CHAPTER 18
Luftschiff LZ127 Graf Zeppelin, Monday, April 29, 1935
The pro-Hitler Nazis had won the election in Anhalt. Strasser had won the election free and clear in Mecklenburg and was broadly hinting that Noske ought to step down and hand over the Reichswehr ministry to someone younger and more mentally agile and physically able, like say the Herr General von Schleicher.
On the other side of the Reichstag, Thälmann had brought up a new fellow named Fischer, who seemed to be extremely active, inventive, and secretive. Outside of it, the Münzenberg papers had splashed across their pages lurid tales of a Frau Fliegerin and a Herr Kanone who had flown off to Bavaria for a passionate tryst. No names filled the columns of Welt am Abend and Rote Fahne, but "everyone knew."
George Putnam had been rather calm about those wild claims of a love-nest in the Bavarian Alps. "Amelia and I have an agreement; we don't need to hold to outdated standards," he had written, to which Manfred had telegraphed back "I DO AND I DIDN'T". Besides, Mother had bought the place in Bavaria.
The Bolsheviks were still pounding on a separatist theme here in Germany; in France, for example, they were talking sweet licorice to the Socialists, but in Germany Braun, Wels, and particularly Noske were "social fascists". If it kept Hugenberg satisfied . . .
Add to this the usual quarrels within the Grand Coalition Government. Or Government of National Concentration. Even the new DNLP, the merger of the State Party and the People's Party, trembled with disarray.
The man in the center, so to speak, had his opinion of it all. "We need a new initiative!" Papen said at the cabinet meeting. "We need to show our national concord, our alliance against unnatural influences!"
"We need another foreign visit," Braun said dryly.
That program seemed to be the solution. Fill the front pages of the papers -- the papers aside from Germania, and the Lokalanzeiger and the rest of the Hugenberg chain. But where to? England had been done and was covered. Last month the Kaiser had gone there on a private visit -- the memories of the War were still too bitter for it to be a state visit, even though he did end up speaking privately to the heir and to his brother Albert, even to Albert's two daughters ("Yes, if you are a good little girl I will come again, Lillibet."). But he had laid a wreath at the Cenotaph, spoken to several veterans about the need for reconciliation and about how all nations had suffered, visited the Ford assembly plant at Dagenham to share experiences with the workers, and otherwise attempted to play down any image of the arch-militarist Hun aggressor. It helped that he remained in civilian clothes throughout, even when reviewing that Royal Air Force fly-by.
They got what they wanted. "Kaiser Louis Ferdinand has done much during his visit to dispel the belligerent image his grandfather had striven so to create," the editorial in the Times said. What Grossvater Wilhelm in Doorn would say would be another matter, but for now . . .
But what other country for Louis-Ferdinand's Reichskanzler to visit? Italy was completely out of the question. Mussolini had been striving for another summit conference, something about Somaliland. They didn't want to be seen to be giving him any encouragement, though.
France was completely out of the question, too. Flandin, their current prime minister, was taking a hard line against les Boches for now, and Laval was backing him up. When the ambassador had mentioned how well things had gone during the English visit, Laval had said, "Yes, but we are not to be taken so lightly." The prospect of being confronted with a long procession of war widows and fatherless young adults, and worst of all maimed veterans (as they said, mutilés de guerre), all on the theme of it was all his fault and his responsibility, neither encouraged nor reprimanded Manfred. He doubted he would be able to meet Fonck the way he did Rickenbacker, or Bishop.
Poland did not even want to have a German leader set foot on its territory. Beneš of Czechoslovakia had already promised to be at the Olympics next year -- that would be an interesting time -- and Prime Minister Malypetr had said that any previous visit would just stir up the Sudetens. And encouraging Horthy of Hungary or Carol of Romania was a non-starter.
Belgium would no doubt entail a visit to Louvain. The Netherlands had the problem that visiting and not visiting Doorn would each cause a serious domestic crisis; either he snubbed the former Kaiser and alienated the Nationalists or visited him and disgusted the Social Democrats. So Leopold and Wilhelmina would both have to do without him.
Austria was a flak trap. "Encouragement for the Butcher of Vienna!?" Noske said, and that sort of comment coming from Noske (who himself had used artillery against the Spartacists back in 1919 but that was then and this was now) indicated that going to Austria was a non-starter. Even assuming the French didn't do something about it. Trying an opening to Austria had brought down Brüning, and Manfred did not appreciate the prospect of M. François-Poncet putting Herr Hitler into this office, with or without French troops in Berlin.
(And besides, rubbing salt in old French wounds, redemolishing the Belgian ruins, or overrunning Poland again was not what he was there for.)
There seemed to be a stalemate. What to do?
"I owe Rickenbacker a visit," Manfred said. "And Woollcott. While I am
at it, I should see his friend President Roosevelt."
They all blinked. And then Braun (he had been expecting it to be Hugenberg) said, "Herr Reichskanzler, it's impossible! We can't trust an airplane to fly that far, there's not one that can carry the proper entourage, and ships would just take too long . . ." His voice trailed off.
"Herr Finance Minister, how much did the government advance for this new Zeppelin they are building?" Manfred said, lightly.
"About two million Marks," Schwerin von Krosigk said.
"I think they owe us a little something in return."
Manfred looked up at the ceiling, thinking of the gas bags that lay above, liters and liters of hydrogen waiting for the first spark. "If you've seen as many of these things go up as I have, you would be worried, too," he said. "Collishaw got eight of ours, that Belgian Coppens -- the new Attaché -- thirty-four, and you remember about the American Frank Luke. Woosh! I want to get helium for the next one."
"I wondered why you put that topic on the list of matters to discuss with the American President," Neurath said.
"All is in order, and I have the latest wire from your brother," Papen said as he came over with the radiogram. "The reception party will include the Herr Admiral Byrd, the Herr Obersts Lindbergh and Rickenbacker, and Herr Putnam, along with the Herr Governor Hoffman and the Herr Secretary of State -- which they take to say 'Foreign Minister' -- Herr Hull.
"You will go to Washington and meet with the Herr President and his advisors tomorrow through Thursday, and then we will tour the American horse country over the weekend. On Monday you will address this German-American Society in Cincinnati and appear with Herr Orville Wright in Dayton. Tuesday will be a rest day, except for your interview on the radio, and Wednesday we leave for home."
"That's very good, Herr von Papen," Bodenschatz said. "Have you thought of a new career as a travel-agency manager?"
A Man and a Plane: An Alternate Germany Page 30